I Meant to Do That

Methinks thou doth protest too much

Joe Gibbs is perfectly insisting that the Redskins were in control and the team and coaches knew exactly what they were doing at the end of the Giants game Sunday, that they had the clock, the sets and the playcalls all right, all the way they wanted, the last play just did not go off.

Jason La Canfora from the post link above:

Joe Gibbs provided a detailed explanation... Gibbs,...went into uncharacteristic detail...On their final possession, the Redskins spiked the ball on first down in a planned move...Despite what may have appeared to be chaos on the sideline to some on the final Redskins possession, Gibbs was in control, he said... "It's what we wanted to do," Gibbs said...

Someone is telling a story, like when your mom asked you what happened to the lamp and she just sat there with her arms crossed and let you go all the way through a story of incredible coincidences, wild animals and maybe even a home intruder who was here but is gone now and that's what happened mom honest we werent kicking the ball inside.

Bram Weinstein must have been at the same presser because he has equally hilarious fibs in his story:

On the decision to spike the ball at the one, Gibbs explained that he "could have run a QB sneak," but because the team had what they call their "nickel" offensive package with 3 WR's, they wanted to spike the ball to get the right "package into the game." So the Skins went with a jumbo package there but threw coming out of it and then had the two failed run plays...[Gibbs] also insinutaed [sic] that the team did everything they wanted to do except execute essentially taking exception to the notion that the Skins blew their two minute offense or had trouble with time management [in the Eagles game].

Quoting Bram is tough because it's clear he types at breakneck speed, has no spellcheck and often crams multiple thoughts into one sentence.

I'm going to call bullshit on coach Joe. There are too many cooks and when seconds matter the team can't get their message out to the field. There are too many layers and the playcaller (Al Saunders) is too far removed from the action and by that I don't mean in the booth I mean he appears to have no interaction with the players during the game. If he does and the team wants us to know about it all they have to do is put Al out there with a player from time to time which they never do.

The delay of game penalty at the end of the Eagles game was uncalled for. Jason Campbell had to spike the ball because Antwaan Randle El was stopped in bounds even though it looked like he was pushed out of bounds and the team had 40 seconds to get it together and still took the clock penalty.

In the Giants game, Santana's last catch resulted in his getting hurt, you could see him limping at the line, trying to get off the field but Jason lined up to run the quick play and Santana stayed in. Jason fumbled when the snap came too early and he had to spike it on the next play to save clock. Jason should have known Santana was hurt and if he missed it the coaches should have spotted it and calmed him down.

Then at the end after Antwaan's big catch all this business about switching from a three wide to heavy jumbo and then throwing from that set then two consecutive runs of the same play? Not good. Jason had an extra 15 seconds at least on that last play and if he can't calm down the coaches should be calming him down.

Dan Steinberg is also wondering about the veracity of Joe's story of game management at the end.

I wonder if Joe Gibbs is protesting so loudly that everything went the right way just not the right way because contrary to the team's insistence he was calling the plays on that last drive and just totally fouled it up?

If that's the case the old Joe would have said the problem was on him because he did call all the plays but now that Al calls them Joe cannot afford a fan or media uprising against Al so instead of saying yeah we didn't get that one he has to insist that despite the appearances of confusion, yep we had it all under control until we hit that telephone pole.



Joe Gibbs: Rusty Kennedy / AP photo from here.