Post Game Thoughts

[Shane]

Originally Posted by joecrisp

...For this reason, I think Gibbs will select a starter early, and will not jeopardize the learning curve for his starting QB-- and his offense as a whole-- by holding an open competition at QB throughout the offseason and training camp.

If Ramsey can flourish in these last 3 games, Gibbs should name him the starter for 2005, and focus on fully preparing him for that role from the first QB schools in March, through the start of the 2005 season.

I am of the view that you want to let the players decide who should play, Joe. And that means competition. Let the best player win the job. If you make a decision about who should play before it is clear who is the best player, then "you" are making the decision, not the players.

When you let the players make the decision, then the players know that what counts is performance. It's not investment in the player financially. It's not who is most popular with the fans. It's not a thought that well let's just settle on someone, we are tired of uncertainty. It's not anything other than this guy is the best player and he has proven it because given a fair playing field, he beat out this other player or these other players.

When players on a team know that it's about how well they play and not other factors, then they play better. They play better because they know that its under their control to determine who is going to play and how much.

Joe Theismann said something interesting during the game - that even for him, Joe Gibbs never let him feel comfortable that he was entitled to the job in a closed minded way. He was always pushing for better performance and Theismann knew he had to play at a level that earned him the right to remain the starter.

Gibbs gave a fair chance for Brunell and Ramsey in the preseason. Brunell won the battle fair and square. Ramsey learned that he isn't entitled to the job and he took advantage of being on the sideline and began to learn the new system. He knew that playing time was based on his performance and being the best player available and not on other factors.

Giving players plenty of reps so they can play at a high level is important. More important is the need to see who is the best player we can realistically have as the starting quarterback of the Redskins.

[joecrisp]

I agree that it's important to let the players decide who will play, based on their performance, but let's look at how that's played out so far at the quarterback position: Gibbs held an open competition in the preseason to find out who should be playing, and both of the candidates-- not having a full opportunity to establish any continuity with the offense during practices-- pretty much stumbled their way through the competition, and the only reason anyone emerged as a "winner" is that Brunell was an 11-year veteran, and well... Joe Gibbs likes veteran quarterbacks.

After Brunell "played" his way into the starting quarterback role, Gibbs allowed him to play his way through nine miserable starts before finally deciding he had played his way OUT of the starting job.

Now we have Ramsey as the starter, and while the results have been mixed, Gibbs has admittedly seen vast improvement from the youngster, and he will undoubtedly allow Ramsey the same opportunity he afforded Brunell, and let him keep or lose the starting job through his performance. If Ramsey stumbles mightily through the last 3 games, then Gibbs will likely decide it's time to give someone else a chance to prove they're worthy.

My point is not that you must disallow any opportunity for other players to prove themselves, but rather that you must ALLOW one player-- and that's one player at a time-- to prove themselves at the position of quarterback. We've seen the Spurrier days of shuffling quarterbacks whimsically based on the inevitable peaks and valleys that all quarterbacks must play through. We've seen the Gibbs way of splitting reps between two quarterbacks in the hopes that one quarterback would emerge as a bastion of stability out of such a de-stabilizing scenario. We've also seen what happens when you commit to a player out of some misguided sense of loyalty or financial obligation.

Gibbs must make the decision-- not for the sake of making a decision-- but for the sake of the quarterback, the offense, and the team as a whole. He needs to make that decision early, and he needs to base it on how he sees the quarterbacks perform on a daily basis. Gibbs believes he needs to give his starting quarterback 90% of the reps in practice. If that's his chosen method, then it would follow that he would need to choose a starting quarterback in order for that methodology to be effective. You don't institute that system after the 4th preseason game-- you institute it early in the offseason. If the guy you choose proves in practice that he's worthy of being the starter, you keep him in there. If he doesn't, you give the next guy the opportunity to take 90% of the reps until he proves he can do the job or he can't.