Joe Can Turn it Around

When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you

Joe Gibbs has called this his worst season ever in 15 years of being the head football coach of the Washington Redskins. And no wonder:

The Redskins finished 31st in total defense and last in total yards allowed per play. The Redskins were last in passes allowed of 20 yards or more and 31st in allowing pass plays of 40 yards or more. They were 27th against the run and 23rd overall against the pass, but last in yards allowed per pass. The team set a record for fewest take-aways in a 16-game season with 12. The Redskins had six interceptions and six fumble recoveries.

The Redskins were 20th in points scored and 27th in points allowed. Gibbs was pleased the Redskins were fourth in rushing yards but concerned they finished below the league average in time of possession.

Joe made his usual happy talk about a solid nucleus and some challenges and room for improvement but made no commitments to any particular course of action. In fact, in many respects it sounded a bit like another leader we know talking about another bad situation:

...Gibbs covered a range of topics, but said he would be noncommittal on nearly all of them until he and his coaches meet over the next three weeks.

Gibbs said the team would work hard to keep its coaching staff intact, and that he and owner Daniel Snyder will continue to discuss their options, including hiring a general manager.

Sound familiar? Like that other conflict, the one and only viable solution is in front of the leader, he just is unwilling to accept it because it would reflect on that leader's poor judgement.

New York Times had a similar piece:

“Everyone sees Joe show up and it’s like, ‘Great, we’re going to win a championship,’” Joe Theismann, Gibbs’s winning quarterback with the Redskins in Super Bowl XVII, said in a telephone interview. “But this is a different era of football. He brought back a sense of pride and work ethic and toughness, but he found out that he wasn’t as in tune with the league from a play-calling aspect as he needed to be.”

This of course is more Joe Thiesmann bullshit. It's not the playcalling, it's the personnel. Power running, play-action passing and conservative route-running never will go out of style. Look at the what the Redskins did this season with between-the-tackles running. As for the passing game, beyond Ladell Betts, Santana Moss and Chris Cooley, the personnel never jelled and on defense, Gregg Williams, a guy that took a defense to the Super Bowl six years ago and was a head coach for three years this decade cannot be said to be past his prime. Bad at what he does yes/maybe, but a relic of history, no.

In this light, I found this an interesting piece over on Tandler's. His theory is that all those overpaid Redskins players that the team assumes will gladly restructure 'for the good of the team' may not be as interested, for the actual good of the team. A key part of the Redskins offseason financial maneuvering has always been finding the guys going into the money years of a deal and getting them to restructure, usually resulting in a cash payment to the player (they always love cash in hand over big weekly checks) and a friendlier cap number for that player going into the next season. If most or all the money players refuse to restructure, the Redskins will be forced either to keep them at the higher rate or cut them and take the dead-money cap hit, which may be more devastating to the cap remainder, which they will need to sign players.

I think this is something of a 'we have to destroy the village in order to save it' strategy that shuts off easy and addictive access to what is essentially a salary cap credit card. What would happen next season? It would be a bunch of guys making a lot of money and more no-name guys making league minimum with no new high-priced free agents, but it might help to break the cycle and get the Redskins back to the more financially sound practices of building through the draft. Who knows, maybe a bunch of lower-priced guys may be more susceptible to Joe's 'wise man of football,' his former stock in trade, building up players in public, only punishing in private and convincing them that winning solves all their and the team's problems.



Joe Gibbs: Molly Riley / Reuters