Quote:
Originally Posted by skinsfan69
And another thing that bothers me is everyone says we went to the playoffs 2 out of the last 4 years. Yes, that is a fact. But we won ONE game. That's one playoff game in 4 years. Let's not get carried away here. Have our expectations sunk so low that we're happy to simply make the playoffs and go home after one game?
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I'm with you on the "lowered expectations" (said in the sing songy voice used on MadTV's Lowered Expectations). But there's a definite reason for it, it's called "We averaged 7 wins a season" in the 11 seasons between Gibbs' coaching stints.
I think we're missing the genius of what Coach Gibbs did. He got Dan Snyder to see the folly of the big spending sprees, but its how he did it that's sick. Instead of coming in and saying, "That's not how we did it in my day" Coach Gibbs said "Fire up Redskins One!" You know Snyder still views 2000 as the "Lost Season," that if he had any coach other than Norv Turner then all those moves would have paid off, especially coming off the playoff push in '99. Well, Gibbs said "OK, I'll show you" and after '05 he allowed Snyder to crank up Redskin One and use his lucky pen to sign all the free agents he wanted, which then resulted in 5 wins and an offense best described as limited.
Nah, Gibbs 2.0 to me will be defined by the lesson he taught our owner. Gibbs showed Snyder that a team is not built overnight, that even legendary coaches can struggle, and that he should invest more in the draft and use free agency (and his checkbook) judiciously. And he taught all those lessons without ever once actually saying those things, he allowed Snyder the space to grow as an owner. And then, just to show that he still has it, he was somehow able to get the team to come together after it's best player was murdered in his home. Maybe on the field Gibbs was just ok, but overall, dude did the damn thing, and better than anybody else could have.