ALL OR NOTHING.

By ROBYN NORWOOD

Sept. 3, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ASHBURN, Va. —

By now, you know the expectations that await the Washington Redskins.

Best-case scenario: Redskins win the Super Bowl.

Worst-case scenario: Any other outcome.

Whether Washington will make it to Super Bowl XXXV or implode into a team resentful of its expensive aging superstars or splintered by a quarterback controversy between Brad Johnson and Jeff George is one of the biggest questions of the NFL season that opens today.

Daniel M. Snyder--the controversial 35-year-old owner who paid a record $800 million for the team in 1999--doled out $40 million more in signing bonuses this off-season in a spending spree that brought the team future Hall of Famers Deion Sanders and Bruce Smith, safety Mark Carrier, George and two of the top three picks in the draft, linebacker LaVar Arrington and tackle Chris Samuels.

Can you buy a Lombardi Trophy? Snyder certainly is trying.

But what about the tremendous pressure of expectations in a capital sometimes more obsessed with Coach Norv Turner’s job security than the future of Social Security?

“If you don’t expect to win it all, why are you playing?” said Sanders, 33, who signed a seven-year, $56-million contract in June after the Dallas Cowboys released him rather than pay him a guaranteed $23.5 million over the next two years.

As of kickoff time today against the Carolina Panthers, the answers will be on the field.

“It won’t be Dan Snyder’s fault if we don’t win,” said Smith, who at 37 approvingly calls Snyder “this young man” and is one of four players--along with cornerback Darrell Green, 40, and receiver Irving Fryar and punter Tommy Barnhardt, both 37--who are older than the owner.

“It will be our fault--us as players and as a coaching staff,” Smith said. “He’s done everything he can within his power to put together a championship, and we’re very grateful for it. We realize the opportunities that are in front of us. We just have to keep our heads mentally straight and focused on a week-to-week basis.”

Not everyone sees Snyder in such a glowing light. (Not everyone has the five-year, $25-million contract Snyder gave Smith.)

Snyder--who in February agreed to sell his marketing company, Snyder Communications, for more than $2 billion so he could spend more time on the Redskins--has stirred controversy from the beginning.

Shortly after buying the team, he fired two dozen employees--many of them low-level office workers--and later forced out General Manager Charley Casserly.

He has broken unwritten NFL rules by advertising in a competitor’s market, Baltimore, and by becoming the first team to charge fans to attend training camp, at $10 per adult and $10 for parking.

The Redskins claim they lost money on camp despite an attendance of 70,000--the team erected special structures and hired personnel to handle the crowds--and say the “NFL Experience” and chance for kids to run timed 40-yard dashes were meant to include more fans, not make more money.

Still, Snyder and the team were roundly jeered--including in an episode of the comic strip “Tank McNamara,” in which an owner who charges admission to camp and takes a public-relations hit asks, “Did it make money?”

“It made money,” an underling replies. “But we can make some more money by renting the lobby of the motel we stay at before home games and charging admission to kids looking for autographs.”

Perhaps most of all, Snyder is seen as a meddler, too involved in personnel decisions and too public in questioning the coaching staff.

Most famously, he held a 20-minute meeting with Turner after a 38-20 loss to the Cowboys last season. Both men now deny it was a shouting match, and Turner calls it “a very private conversation.”

“There’s no way anyone could understand that interaction. It’s just like I don’t understand the interaction between Tony Dungy and his owner, Mike Holmgren and his owner,” said Turner, who is in his seventh season as coach and recently jokingly referred to himself as a “Survivor” a la the television show.

“We had a 20-minute session in the locker room following one game,” Turner said. “It’s a 20-minute discussion when you’re talking about what’s becoming an 18-month, 19-month relationship.”

Whether Snyder ultimately is stamped as a bratty dilettante--owners who once sniffed at new money now look askance at young money--or as an innovator in a stale league might well depend on the outcome of this season.

The Redskins have won three Super Bowls, most recently in 1992. They were 6-10 the season before Snyder took over, turning that around to a 10-6 NFC East championship season last year.

The flaw was the defense: The Redskins ranked 30th among 31 teams.

They were mired in a statistical disaster from the outset, giving up 41 points to Dallas in the opener.

Five times in the first nine games, they gave up 34 points or more.

But over the final nine, including the playoffs, they gave up an average of 16.3, including the 14-13 loss to Tampa Bay that ended their season.

“I think a lot of people felt we could have beaten Tampa in the second round of the playoffs,” Turner said.

“We have 18 starters off that team. So that’s the exciting part. Then you start adding Bruce Smith, Mark Carrier, Deion Sanders . . .”

One question is whether Sanders and Smith--the second-leading sack man in NFL history--are too far past their primes. Their former teams, Dallas and Buffalo, let them go rather than pay them.

“There’s no sign of them slowing down, personality-wise or on the field,” said Arrington, the rookie linebacker. “They have a lot of wisdom. I know they’re old enough they could be my father. But I have fun with the guys. I have fun with my father too.”

Smith can only laugh.

“I am aging,” he said. “I’m happy to be aging. It beats the alternative. I think it’s a blessing to age. So be it. People can think what they want to think.

“There’s savvy there, and there’s still some youth left in my legs and some youth left in my body. I think when you incorporate every particular position that’s on defense, we have youth and some older guys, and I think it’s going to be a great combination.”

Sanders remains inimitable, saying before the season the cornerback position should be renamed “Deion” in his honor.

“I’m different from a lot of corners,” he said. “A lot of corners who you all compare me to today, they give up two catches, they’re still a great corner.

“I give up two catches, it’s, ‘He’s lost it. He’s lost a step.’ And it’s crazy. I mean, my touchdown ratio in the last 10 years has been phenomenal.

“I said this before. I’m like Humpty Dumpty that sat on the wall. But this Humpty Dumpty has never fallen. So all the king’s horses and all the king’s men might as well go ahead and be Humpty fans.”

Sanders raves about perhaps the most overlooked acquisition--Ray Rhodes, hired as defensive coordinator after being fired as coach of the Green Bay Packers after one season.

“Ray is wonderful. That’s a whole story in itself,” Sanders said.

Adding Sanders to a secondary that already had Green and Champ Bailey at corner makes a big difference.

“This is the first time I’ve been around the type of cover guys this team has,” Rhodes said. “It gives you the ability to be aggressive. But the one thing about being aggressive, you want to be smart with it. You don’t want all of a sudden to turn into an all-out blitzing team every snap. You have to still have a good mix of zone, man and the blitz.”

In any case, he is comfortable with Sanders.

“I felt coming in Deion is still the same Deion Sanders I knew back when,” Rhodes said. “From a movement standpoint, the movement’s still there.”

After age, the question becomes chemistry.

“Yeah, at first the excitement was, ‘They’re getting all these good players,’ ” Carrier said. “Then after it was all said and done, it was, ‘Well, I don’t know if the chemistry is there. They’ve got to learn a new defense, maybe they’ll be a year away.’

“That’s what goes with the business we’re in. You reach success, the next phase is, ‘How do you bring ‘em back down?’ ”

The salary cap and Father Time will come home to roost soon enough. If the Redskins are going to win, now would be best.

“There are so many intangibles that go into it, it’s hard to say what defensive team will reach the Super Bowl,” Carrier said. “Not every team that’s No. 1 in the league in defense reaches the Super Bowl.

“On the field, these players can still play. They still have a lot of game left in the legs. Bruce, Deion and Darrell, all of ‘em can still play and start for anybody in the league and be effective. I have no doubt about that.”

There’s no doubt about this, either: If the Redskins don’t contend, somebody--probably Turner--is going to pay.

After all, Snyder already has.

“If he didn’t spend the money, they would talk about him for not spending the money, and say ‘You’re not committed to winning,’ ” Smith said.

“Well, he’s gone out and done what I think every owner should do. If you want to win, put together a championship-caliber team.

“If we don’t win, it’ll be our fault.”

NFL WEEK 1

TODAY

* Arizona at N.Y. Giants: 10

* Baltimore at Pittsburgh: 10

* Carolina at Washington: 10

* Chicago at Minnesota (Ch. 11): 10

* Detroit at New Orleans: 10