If Skins' Joe Gibbs isn't having second thoughts, perhaps he should
In case you hadn't noticed, the returning hero routine isn't going so well for Joe Gibbs in Washington. It's apparently tougher to be a savior for the Redskins than any of us realize.
If you're scoring at home, the Redskins are now 3-6 (.333) under Gibbs, 15-26 (.366) from the start of 2002 on (the Steve Spurrier and Gibbs eras), 24-36 (.400) in the 60 games since owner Daniel Snyder ran Norv Turner out of town with three weeks remaining in the 2000 season, and 25-40 (.385) since mid-season of 2000, when Washington was 6-2 and appeared to be sailing to a second consecutive playoff appearance.
That's about the point when Snyder, with that impeccable reverse Midas touch of his, decided that Jeff George should take over for Brad Johnson as the Redskins' starting quarterback.
All Johnson had done was go 11-7 as the team's starter in 1999, leading Washington to its first playoff berth since 1992, and won six of his first nine starts in 2000, when the Redskins' grotesquely overpaid roster featured the likes of free-agent has-beens Deion Sanders, Bruce Smith and Mark Carrier. As a starter in Washington, Johnson was 17-10 at that point, a .630 winning percentage. To repeat, the Redskins have played less than .400 ball since benching Johnson, and finished at .500 or below every season.
Come to think of it, maybe what the Redskins have been dealing with the past four-plus years is the Curse of Brad Johnson.
Nah, it's just Snyder's plain and simple old incompetence.
On Sunday, the Redskins were beaten 17-10 at home by Cincinnati, which happens to be coached by Marvin Lewis. Snyder, of course, had several cracks to hire Lewis as his head coach. He could have done it after the 2000 season, when Lewis served as Baltimore's defensive coordinator and helped the Ravens to the Super Bowl title, and he could have done it in early 2002, when he lured Lewis away from Baltimore to be Washington's defensive coordinator.
But that wouldn't have been splashy enough for Snyder, who was too busy hiring the likes of Marty Schottenheimer and then Spurrier as his head coach to notice that Lewis might be a much cheaper and wiser alternative. Lewis already had a successful first season with the Bengals under his belt by the time Snyder cranked up his hype machine last winter and landed Gibbs as his latest blockbuster coaching hire.
But now even the coup of restoring Gibbs to the sidelines after an 11-year absence looks dubious. Despite Gibbs' pedigree for offensive genius, the Redskins rank 31st in scoring (125 points, just two ahead of hapless Miami), and their quarterback situation proves that two wrongs don't make a right. It's finally Patrick Ramsey's turn to take over for the humiliated Mark Brunell, but you get the feeling that there are no quick fixes coming in D.C.
If Gibbs comes back for another fun-filled year in Washington -- and after the mini-drama that was the Spurrier denouement, I don't think anything's a lock -- I'd be willing to bet that he requires further assistance on the personnel side of the front office in 2005. With nary a Bobby Beathard or Charley Casserly in sight, Gibbs has smiled and said all the right things about the decision-making team of himself, Sndyer and vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato being up to the job. But who's kidding whom?
With the leveling effects of the salary cap, coaching in the NFL is much tougher in 2004 than it was in 1992, and Gibbs needs help. First-rate help. Since you can't fire the owner, that spells trouble for Cerrato's tenure, or at least his assignment near the top of the Redskins management flow chart.
As one veteran front office executive in the league told me last week: "Vinny's a disaster, and Joe needs somebody in personnel who can help him get quality players. I think Gibbs was flabbergasted at the change in the league since he last coached, and the effect of not having Beathard, Casserly or (former Redskins owner) Jack Kent Cooke surrounding him. I don't know if he was prepared for the reality of how the league is today.
"The players have changed since Joe last coached. You have to put up with more. I don't know whether at his age (63), he's willing to tolerate fools. You get less so the older you are. It'd be a shocker, but if things get real bad and start falling apart, I could see him citing his health concerns and walking away after this season. He already looks like the job is wearing him down.''
Has it really already come to that kind of speculation in Washington? Wasn't it just the other day we were arguing about whether Spurrier would return for Year 3 in old D.C.? As absurd as it sounds to be discussing Gibbs' future, with the change-happy Redskins, you never say never.
It's too early to tell how the 2004 story in Washington will end. But if that long-shot scenario comes true, and the second Gibbs era ends after one desultory season, Redskins fans will have only one common denominator to point to in the whole, sorry five-year saga: Snyder. The owner who just can't seem to win for losing.
Here is the whole article:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/don_banks/11/15/banks.shots/index.html
I know this should get some people worked up. I can't stand some of these journalists who think they know everything.
