Turn around point of the season was...

[dgack]

This might be a controversial thing to say, but I don't think we make the playoffs if Sean wasn't murdered.

In fact, I'll go so far as to say that if Sean survives and is in critical condition right now, this team loses most of its last 5 games. Hell, if the media doesn't go so heavy-handed in its "thug" treatment of Sean after the murder, I think that might have affected how this team played.

"That was the worst moment of my career," Gibbs said of the 15-yard penalty he drew when he called back-to-back timeouts against Buffalo, a mental mistake that set up a game-winning 36-yard field goal. "Sometimes in life, maybe some of the best things happen to you after you have been kind of crushed. . . . I think for me personally there were some things that I needed to go through there. Having the right priorities was a big deal. That was really a defining moment for me four weeks ago. I get kind of emotional talking about it."

Perhaps most important, he shared his thoughts, and his pain, with his team at the time. The day after Taylor's funeral, just two days before a Thursday night game against the Bears, Gibbs called a team meeting. "That's when I thought we came together," linebacker London Fletcher said. "Joe got in front of the team and said that, usually, when you accomplish something great in life, you look back and realize that you just came through great hard times and made it out of a tremendous storm."

Been thinking a lot about this whole train of thought. I think we'd all agree we'd give all those wins back to have #21 back on our team, or even just back among the living, if he never put a Redskins helmet on again. But, that isn't the plan that God had for Sean, the team, or us.

As it stands, one man's sacrifice has transformed an entire team, and I think they realize now, the gift they have been given, and the responsibility they have to seize it, and take it as far as they can go with it.