[70Chip]

Originally Posted by JWsleep

Now, I love Gibbs--the 3 Superbowls while I was growing up will forever make him one of my all time football heroes. But I think JLac is correct: if it was ANYONE but Gibbs coaching for the last four years, we would not be having this debate. And that indicates that we are not judging Gibbs 2 by football standards; that is, we are not considering how the football team actually played during the last 4 years. We are thinking of RFK rocking, Riggins running, Monk and Clark catching, etc. But that is not the right way to evaluate the last 4 years. Look at what happened on the football field. The team, particularly on offense, was just not that good. And there were too many penalties, turnovers, 3 and outs, failures to protect the lead (how many games did we lose after leading at halftime? Think about it.), failures to manage the clock, failure to get 7 in the red zone, failure to stretch the field reliably, etc. That's not to say it never happened, but not enough to make the teams of the last 4 years good teams. And given that we won lots of our games because of stout D, and that Williams basically had free reign over there, it's hard to look objectively at Gibbs 2 and say it was a success, even a moderate one. And all this is not even taking into account the massive amount of money spent.

I was a stalwart supporter throughout Gibbs 2--I much prefer to accentuate the positive while the season is on (It just makes things feel worse, IMO, if we all start ragging on the team we love). But looking back, it's the memory of Gibbs 1 that comes to mind, and that distorts my view of Gibbs 2. Realistically, it was a failure.

Now, he did get us some good players. But he had some terrible ones in there as well. AA, B Lloyd, the trade for the RB who never played (what was his name again?), and he traded away tons of draft picks. He explicitly said he was going to build in free agency and not the draft. I'm not sure that was good strategy. We can debate this, of course, and there were some great moves, no doubt (Cooley, for example). But was it really so great? Again, if it wasn't Gibbs, what would you think?

I am NOT a Gibbs hater--go back and check my posts, if you want. But I can admit it now in retrospect: Gibbs 2 was a failure.

PS I don't think this is a dead issue. One, JG is done, and we're considering the legacy. When are we supposed to that, during his tenure? Two, we want to have a reasonable yardstick for Zorn. If we hold him to JG 1 standards, he's not long for this team, most likely. If we give him some slack now and build with him (and that means dealing with 6-10 or worse, perhaps), then things look different. So it's a live issue.

(Wow. Long post. Sorry!)

I don't think people appreciate how disfunctional the redskins had gotten by the end of Spurrier. I was at the last Dallas game in which they were shutout and they literally couldn't get the various personell in and lined up before the playclock expired. They were dreadful.

Also, in the eleven seasons that Gibbs was gone the Redskins went to the playoffs once. Gibbs improved on that by 100% in the four years that followed. In addition think he gave the front office a better perspective on how to run an organization. Lastly, Gibbs brought physicality back to the team. Gibbs didn't win every game but I can't think of a single one in which they were out-hit. Teams around the league thought of the Redskins as soft during his absence - 2001 with Marty being the one exception.

I also think that Greg Williams deserves a lot of credit for the restoration of the defensive culture that some now seem to take for granted. I guess I've been watching long enough to still be a little bit surprised when four or five defenders swarm the ball and actually tackle as oppossed to what was routine in the past - broken tackle after broken tackle.