The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

Chris Luva Luva wrote:Gibbs has set this franchise on the right course... Why derail it by scrapping the whole thing?

LOSTHOG wrote:I will publicly go on the record and say that I don't want Cowher. I just think that a lot of his record was due to the weak division he was in. Once Marty left Cleveland for KC the Browns went way down. The Bengals never regrouped after Wyche left. Houston had one spike but I believe they had already started declining by Cowher's second year. The new Browns after the old guys moved to Baltimore wasn't competitive. He made the playoffs by default most years IMO. I'm not doubting he's a sound coach, just maybe not as great as the media has made him out to be. However, I will be a Redskins fan no matter who they hire. I will fully support our team and hope Danny didn't blow it.

grampi wrote:JG is 67 years old, he had to deal with the death of ST, another season of falling short, and he's dealing with the serious illness of a grandchild. It's time for him to move on. He's got more on his plate than most people could handle. I'll always have a tremendous amount of respect for the man for what he's done for this franchise throughout his entire career, and I wish him the best. Thanks Joe.

riggofan wrote:It has to be Williams.

RedskinsFreak wrote:

riggofan wrote:It has to be Williams.

As Bram just said on Redskins Radio, if you truly believe that this team is real close to being a legitimate title contender and you want to maintain what's been built here, you gotta go GW, keeping Saunders to run the offense.

As soon as I heard that, though, one little caveat crawled into my head:

"Wasn't that the objective when they 'kept it together' by making Petitbon the coach the first time Gibbs resigned?"

RedskinsFreak wrote:As soon as I heard that, though, one little caveat crawled into my head:

"Wasn't that the objective when they 'kept it together' by making Petitbon the coach the first time Gibbs resigned?"

Fios wrote:

skinsfan#33 wrote:No matter who the HC (except Cower) is next season, prepare yourself for years of futility and no more playoff appearances this decade.

The Skins will yet again be the laughing stock of the NFL.

I that may just be an emotional rant, but it is how I feal right now!

Well, probably time to find another team to root for then

Everyone here at Redskins Park is pretty stunned. One staff member who was in the room at 9 a.m. when Joe Gibbs informed the coaches of his decision said: "I am shocked and numb." The strong sentiment from the players and people here I spoke to today is that Gregg Williams should get the job, and that's coming from offensive and defensive players alike.

One former Redskin, who speaks daily to many of his former teammates, said: "It has to be Gregg, there's no doubt about it. If they go from outside guys will be pissed. Unless they want to tear up the team and go with a different group of guys, it has to be Gregg."

Spoke to some people close to Russ Grimm, a former Redskin and longtime esteemed NFL assistant, who said his current team, Arizona, had not been contacted by the Redskins. Of course, we are very early in the process so things could change. Bill Cowher, former Super Bowl coach with Pittsburgh, will be a name everyone talks about as well.

Jason Reid just spent some time alone with starting WR Antwaan Randle El, who played on Cowher's championship team in Pittsburgh. Randle El voiced strong support for Gregg Williams: "I want the best coach for the job and Gregg is certainly at the top of the list, no doubt. I would love to see him get it just 'cause we've gotten going with the crew that we have here. I would love to see Gregg keep it and let's keep our offensive coordinator. Let's keep all that intact."

Gibbs would commit to virtually nothing during his press conference Monday, but did say that he wanted to retain the coaching staff. As most are in their final year of the contract - and some, like LB Coach Kirk Olivadati, have contracts that are expiring - there would have to be a round of contract extensions in that case.

Spoke to the agents for several prominant coaches and coaching candidates this morning. They all said they believed Williams would get the job, but that was just their reading of the situation and did not come from conversations with Gibbs or Snyder.

Snyder loves Joe and no doubt Gibbs's voice will carry heavy weight with ownership.

Gibbs Leaves With Class

I'm the first to admit I have no "sources within the team" or "high-ranking team officials" or "long-tenured veterans" who call me to kibitz about all things Redskins. And it's easy to say this after the fact. But I'm saying it anyhow: I felt not one iota of surprise when I heard Gibbs was stepping down.

For one thing, playoff loss notwithstanding, he leaves with his reputation fully intact. Who will dare shred Gibbs for his losing record this time around, after the way he handled Taylor's death and then turned it into a four-game winning streak that absolutely no one saw coming? He obviously didn't do anything Hall of Fame-worthy this time around, and he won one playoff game in four years and compiled a losing overall record, but the last month lets him leave with everyone's respect. If next year turned into another bit of drab 7-9 disappointment, that might not be the case.

More importantly, have you heard him this year? Over and over again, he said that he would never retire, look back and say "Gee, I wish I had spent more time studying tape," but that he certainly might say "Gee, I wish I had spent more time with my family." Here he was speaking to Mike Wise about his grandson last month:

When you're closing in on the end of your life at some point, it's not going to be, 'I wish I spent more time coaching a football team,' it's going to be all the things you missed.

That's all you need to know.This isn't about the Lord or the hereafter; this is about priorities here on earth. And when you heard him say it so many times, it was obvious he wasn't making a joke or a quip; he was being earnest. I feel exactly the same way--I'll never sit back in 2057 and say "Gee, why didn't I post one more blog item about athlete mustaches back in January 2008," but I might surely wonder why I was blogging about grown men's facial hair instead of hanging out with my daughter. Difference is, I'm not a 67-year-old millionaire. He is. He doesn't need this.

The clincher was his most recent refrain; he said he used to think he was trying to win games so he'd have a platform for the Lord, but that the Taylor stuff made him step back and realize he was actually trying to win games for himself. Once football became--for Gibbs--about personal pride and not spiritual recruitment, his choices were either to convert football back into something spiritual, or to step away. He chose the latter.

The media made fun of the guy numerous times this year, because of "hard-fought" and "fighting our guts out" and all the rest of the silly cliches, and because of the botched time-outs and late-game misadventures, but that ended after Taylor and it won't return any time soon.

Here's an excerpt from one of Gibbs's recent online testimonials:

My biggest concern in life, is many times, for me, I've had the wrong priorities in life. Where should our profession be? I think it should be third in our life. First should be God and my relationship with him. Second should be my family and the influence I'm having on others. And that puts our profession where? Third. Many times for me, I've had it out of place, where it shouldn't be.

That passage alone makes this news both not unexpected, and entirely classy.