There may never be, as the events of the last dozen NFL seasons have indicated, the square hole into which the peripatetically square peg better known as quarterback Jeff George will ever squeeze comfortably.

Sent packing on Wednesday by a fifth team, this time by a head coach attempting to ameliorate a group of veterans on the cusp of mutiny against the very captain who has piloted the leaky Washington Redskins ship to a disastrous start, it is unclear if George, 33, will never play in the NFL again.

	Marty Schottenheimer's biggest mistake was keeping Jeff George around.

But this much is clear: He should not have been playing for the 'Skins, or certainly for Marty Schottenheimer, this season.

It was, from the outset, a marriage destined for quick divorce. Take a stick of dynamite, soak it in a vat of nitroglycerine, and the resultant by-product would have been far less combustible than the Schottenheimer-George coupling. Douse a tender filet mignon in rancid mayonnaise and it would have been more palatable.

They were, and everyone seemed to understand it, the reincarnation of the old radio show "The Bickersons." A coaching Hatfield and a quarterbacking McCoy, it was really just a matter of time until the intramural feuding began.

George is a seven-step passer who wants to throw the ball vertically. He was deposited into a dink-and-dunk offense and expected to change his stripes both on and off the field. It just wasn't going to happen. Fact is, from the looks of Monday night's debacle defeat at Green Bay, a 25-year-old Johnny Unitas might not have been able to operate the offense.

There was no rhythm or rhyme or reason, and I watched a sixth-grade game on Saturday in which the quarterback was permitted to throw the ball deeper than was George, whose wide receivers consistently hooked up at eight yards even on third-and-10 plays. If the George-Schottenheimer relationship was doomed to failure, the Redskins quarterback was set up for a pratfall by a classic design flaw.

If this sounds like at least a semi-defense of George, who failed with his fourth team in a six-year stretch, well, yeah, that's precisely the point of the exercise. It would have been much fairer to everyone concerned if Schottenheimer and offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye had acknowledged the obvious this spring, that George was not going to fit exactly what they wanted schematically and temperamentally, and dumped him then.

Schottenheimer would have saved himself a headache, not to mention embarrassment, and salvaged George the latest demerit on an already-sullied resumé.

Funny, but four months ago, Schottenheimer endorsed the salary cap maneuver that will permit George to walk away from this latest disaster with $3.75 million in his pocket for two losses. I mean, he had to, right, since Schottenheimer was granted absolute away over football matters by one-time buttinsky owner Daniel Snyder?

For those of you reaching for the calculator, we'll save you the time. That's $1.25 million for every point the woeful Washington offense managed in its two gruesome losses.

The team reduced George's base salary to $477,000 for this year. It then guaranteed, in what amounts to a signing bonus, the balance. Since he is a vested veteran who was on the roster for the opening game, George will pocket not only the bonus but the entire base salary as well.

In two seasons, George banked $6.25 million and started only seven games.

But nowhere out there it appears, save for this space, has anyone publicly questioned the judgment of Schottenheimer, who committed funds and the starting job to George. Let's face it, George was the same guy the last couple of games as he was four months ago. But the warts Schottenheimer now were seemingly oblivious to him this spring.

The coaching staff that exited Washington schooled Schottenheimer in the eccentricities of the quarterback he was inheriting, yet he kept him around anyway. Until Wednesday, when a little self-preservation became the coach's imperative.

Just as notable is that the same folks who highlight George's winning percentage of .371 as the most obvious indictment of his problems are not emphasizing that Schottenheimer is replacing him with a guy who has won a mere 41.0 percent of his starts. Tony Banks, who has averaged a fumble per snap over his NFL career, isn't the answer either. Think about it: Tony Banks suddenly cast in the role of savior. Yeah, that will strike fear in the hearts of defensive coordinators leaguewide.

	George lost two games and is unemployed. Schottenheimer lost an entire team on the first day of training camp but still has a $10 million reward coming to him, whether he gets fired now or at the end of his four-year contract, or anytime in between.

Truth be told, unless Schottenheimer follows George out the door, he'll have addressed only half of the trouble that has precipitated so much internecine griping. The players, in particular the most senior veterans, soured on the disingenuous Schottenheimer in camp long before they began viewing their starting quarterback with a jaundiced eye. The coach's obvious air of imperialism has been no more acceptable to the rank-and-file than George's persona of nonchalance.

George lost two games and is unemployed. Schottenheimer lost an entire team on the first day of training camp but still has a $10 million reward coming to him, whether he gets fired now or at the end of his four-year contract, or anytime in between. But the simple excising of George on Wednesday will not heal the scars of the wounded Redskins nor will it instantaneously cure the cancer that eats away at the team.

You think Bruce Smith isn't grumbling under his breath every week? You think the wide receivers are happy about never running up the field? Even the saintly Darrell Green, a guy expert in the polished art of schmoozing, hasn't cozied up to Schottenheimer. This is a coach with a tough-guy veneer who feels compelled to flaunt his intransigence. And while it might seem too easy to deploy the term "scapegoat" for the treatment of George, the handle fits in this case.

In the spring of 2000, some might recall, the Green Bay Packers were prepared to hire Schottenheimer as the successor to Ray Rhodes, summarily bounced after just one year. Green Bay quickly reached agreement with Kansas City officials on compensation for hiring Schottenheimer, still under contract to the Chiefs. The deal wasn't consummated, in large part, because Packers officials discerned that Schottenheimer appeared much more interested in the salary that accompanied the job than in the responsibilities inherent with returning to the game after a one-year hiatus.

That the Redskins were able to lure Schottenheimer out of retirement was more curious than George has been in his career. A vocal critic of Snyder, and having ripped him on ESPN, Schottenheimer quickly forgot his critique once the owner floated that $10 million offer for four years. In essence, he sold out on his beliefs, so it should not have been too much of a shock when he sold out his quarterback on Wednesday morning.

As someone who has known George since his splendid high school career, we can attest he is not the most lovable person on the planet. Neither, though, is he the wet fish many who have never even met him continue to make him out to be. George tends to surround himself only with those who bear the same surname as him, counts among his confidants a doting mother and father and takes an investment of time and patience to get to know well.

But no one knows more about nepotism than Schottenheimer, who employs his brother as his defensive coordinator and his son as his quarterbacks coach. Far easier, apparently, to fire the guy throwing the football than the son showing him where to throw it.

In a league that lacks collegiality anymore, one where players hustle from the locker room to pursue other pursuits when practice ends, it's difficult for a guy who has trouble making friends anyway to get close to people. For an NFL team that provides so little accessibility to its players as does the Redskins, it's impossible for the media to create a rapport. To know Jeff George, you need to scrape away layer upon layer of gunk, just as you would on a wall that has been wall-papered three or four times.

A good family man, a person of solid Christian faith and a quarterback of wondrous passing ability who never fulfilled his potential, George probably will fade into oblivion as the ultimate enigma. For that, he is at least partly culpable. But the same analysts who used Monday night as a forum for lionizing the alleged teaching skills of Schottenheimer may want to examine the coach under the same microscope they thrust George.

What they'll discover is a guy with just as many flaws.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.