Joe Gibbs' Weak Second Half Has Suffered From Weak Second Halves

How's that for an infinite regression?

If you were a Redskins fan at any point up until 1992 then you know Joe Gibbs football. Let us get in the Wayback Machine and travel back to that year, 1992, the season after the Redskins won Super Bowl 26.

That season on the way to 9-7 and a backdoor berth to the playoffs the Redskins lost three games after leading at the half, against the Cardinals, Eagles and Raiders. Uncharacteristic of Joe Gibbs to give up halftime leads, Joe was known as a guy that could adjust to an opponent, particularly on defense, take away your game and make you try and force it and make mistakes.

With free agency looming and fearing the end of his way of coaching Joe Gibbs resigned after that bitter loss to San Francisco in the playoffs (damn you AJ Johnson, if you close up your arms you have an INT, instead it's a John Taylor TD).

Unfortunately since coming back to the Redskins Joe Gibbs picked up where he left off in 1992. Since coming back in 2004 the Joe Gibbs has lost more games after leading at the half than any other coach. This is simply a bizarre turnaround and like all fans and analysts I am at a loss to explain.

It used to be lockdown in the second half when the Redskins were leading. Joe would frustrate you with counter left, counter right and after just enough gut runs on third down to lure your safety up to the line Mark Rypien would pop on on play action for a first down.

In the 90s after college I patterned my style of Madden play (this was SNES and the original and outstanding Madden 92 and the inferior Madden 93 kids) on Joe. Get a lead and try and run out the clock from the first quarter. Your opponent eventually gets frustrated, especially when sitting around watching a 40 second play clock run down in real time, hell I have time for another shot of Goldschlager between plays while you sit there and seethe.

Then you will send the whole package in to stop the run and I'll pop one long. Rinse repeat (James and Wilbert Montgomery I am talking to you).

So what's happened? How has a coach that went 47-3 at home, meaning that season ending loss to the Raiders in 1992 represents one third of all home losses when leading at the half in all 12 of Joe's first years go on to lose the last four straight at Redskins Stadium when leading at the half?

Well some stuff is easy to analyze. Last season the team sucked and bad things happened. The defense could not stop a small child and despite the great running game last season with such a bad defense the team needed the ability to score and Mark Brunell's spaghetti arm and Jason Campbell's greenness could not get that done.

This last game, against the Giants? No excuse. The defense reverted to 2006 form and at the end with the end zone one yard away the Redskins botched the clock and could not punch it in on three consecutive plays. That's just bad coaching.

I just don't think Joe has been able to put a team like the old ones together. Maybe that's not possible anymore. Maybe has has lost it. Maybe parity in the league, the very thing he ran away from at the dawn of free agency, has rendered that kind of dominance moot and we'll never see 47-3 at home after the half again. I'd like to see stats and see what the league average is for games leading after the half because if I read this piece right Joe is at the back of the pack.



Joe Gibbs: Greg Fiume / Getty Images from here.