Was the Joe Gibbs experiment successful? (1 Viewer)

[KnowledgeReignsSupreme]

Successful? Yes. Mildly.

Mostly because when Gibbs stepped in, the Franchise was in disarray and looked as if it may fall of the NFL cliff of proud, winning franchises for a while. He righted the ship, brought them back to respectability and made the playoffs twice in four years.

Not an astounding success, but more success than failure considering where the franchise is today as compared with 4 years ago.

Well said. I agree.

You paid that much for "stability"? Uh yah. He was a steady force, at almost getting to .500. Great.

The team is still just as much of a mess they were 4 years ago. Now they have no coach. You better hope for Cower.

Defend this comment. I'm tired of you throwing it around with zero to back it up.

You were 5-7. You BARELY made the playoffs with an improbably run, and then got your ### kicked.What have you accomplished in the last 4 years? Nothing.

All this "stability - franchise is stable". huh? You've won nothing, and now you're going to probably bring in a new coaching staff.

You're an average NFC team. You've had almost no draft picks the last two years. How is that not a mess? Check the Pats/Colts. As I said before, you're in the NFL, in cap hell, hugely overpaid coaching staff, and you don't rank in the top half of the NFC in terms of talent.

The skins pulled out all the stops, to end the year 9-7! *lol* WOW! Great job! The culmination of Gibbs 4 years! Then you get your ### handed to you on the road. The coaching staff is old, mostly out of touch, and you need to clean house. The other skins guy is talking about how you NOW have all your draft picks. Wow only took 4 years? Great job Gibbs.

The Skins have been run like a game of 3 card Monte. And what for? 9-7 and out of the playoffs. How much was he making again? 5mil a year? Top 5 in paid coaches, for what? .500 record?

Stability because he was there 4 years. You could go hire LHUCKS for 5 years and have stability. Coaches are there to WIN.

This team isn't poised to make a run next year. It will be 2 years more rebuilting, 3 years wasted of CPs prime, lots of cute FAs, and no wins. Success indeed.

You need to get a grip on reality. The Skins got their asses handed to them by the Seahawks last week? Um, no, unless you mean the same Washington team that had a 4th quarter lead and were on the verge of taking a 4 or 8 point lead before being stopped on the 3rd down and then missing an easy FG. Sorry, but the final score is not always an indication of how close a game really was. Two late INTs being returned for TDs is what the score look more lopsided than it really was.

my guess is that this young boy is new to watching the NFL. nothing to respond to.

moving along

Just to expand on this a bit more since I was thinking about it the other day. I partially agree with Ghost Rider. That missed FG may have hurt more than just in the final score. If the FG is made, Skins go up 17-13. Assuming the Seahawks go down and score a TD like they did the 2nd drive after the miss, they go for 1 and not 2 since there's no need. Score is now 20-17 Hawks. Down only a FG in the 4th quarter, I see no reason for a Gibbs offense to press like they did on the next drive. The offense has generally been pretty conservative, control the clock, win (or lose) the game at the end. Down a TD, when your team has been shutout for 3 quarters and you have to press a bit more. The Seahawks offense had been more or less contained all game (they "only" scored 20 points on offense).Big difference in urgency between down 7 with 6 minutes left and down 3 with 6 minutes left. Down 3, and Gibbs tries to grind the clock and kick a FG to send it into overtime (fitting against the Seahawks).

 

[renesauz]

This is probably the best overall summary of this tenure, from Thomas Boswell at the Post:

In his first term as Redskins coach, Gibbs became famous for many things, including a cutting-edge offensive system, superlative halftime adjustments and some of the best game management tactics in the NFL. In his second term, all that reversed.

In his first year back, one veteran player, meaning no harm, casually referred to Gibbs's "1991 offense." By the 2006 season, Gibbs had fired himself as offensive guru, and the team brought in Al Saunders for that role after years of success in Kansas City and St. Louis.

Instead of faring well after intermissions, the Redskins became perhaps the worst team in the NFL at holding second-half leads over the last four seasons. Narrow losses, which Gibbs always called "heartbreaking," became the rule. A shattering 52-7 defeat to the perfect Patriots in New England may also have been a sign to Gibbs that his era as a premiere builder of champions was in the past and that, perhaps, some of his assistants, like Williams or Saunders, might do better with more or complete authority.

Despite his shortcomings in his second tour with the Redskins, Gibbs had a glorious final chapter in which his strongest suit -- his character -- was on display to a greater degree than ever before. From his private words and personnel warmth to his players to his public statements and words from the pulpit at Taylor's funeral in Miami, Gibbs struck exactly the right notes to minister to his players as people. And he also helped them to bond behind the memory of their teammate to be a better, closer and more focused football team.

All season, Gibbs praised his players' character and said that, in the last month, he even saw groups of players in small team-called meetings do extra work or simply talk about how much they wanted to play their best. When Gibbs came back four years ago, he inherited a team, and an organization, with almost zero cohesion, collective self-esteem or leadership. Steve Spurrier, the most casual and disengaged of NFL coaches, barely seemed to know all his players' first names let alone worry about their character or ability to interact and lead. Gibbs rebuilt the team from the inside out, stressing personal qualities almost as much, at times, as raw athletic ability.

That has to be the best description in the thread. I voted "success", but agree with many that it was not an overwhelming one. The team may be only marginally better then four years ago on the field, but have most of their picks, and act like a team, which the version four years ago did not. Todays Washington Redskins make this Eagles fan more nervous then the version from four years ago, because I can envision them getting better, instead of remaining an NFC doormat and joke.Was Gibbs a success? Maybe not on the field, but behind closed doors, he was a huge success for that organization.

 

[pollardsvision]

no offense to gibbs, who was great in his time, but it sounds like pretty much all of the success from the joe gibbs 2.0 experiment had more to do with convincing dan snyder to stop being a moron and less to do with actual coaching.

it sounds like the skins fans are pleased with the direction of the team and the overall increased talent level (and fewer overpaid washed up former stars).

that's nice, but that would mean that the gibbs 2.0 era had more talent with roughly equal results to the prev. 4 seasons, which would point to a not so stellar coaching job.

sounds to me like getting a leash for dan snyder and getting some like a rod marinelli could accomplished the same thing

 

[Jason Wood]

teamroc...keep the discussions civil please. You made your point known, there's no need to escalate the discussion into an angry rant.

 

[AB in DC]

that's nice, but that would mean that the gibbs 2.0 era had more talent with roughly equal results to the prev. 4 seasons, which would point to a not so stellar coaching job.

The previous four seasons:8-8

8-8

7-9

5-11

0 playoff appearances

Say what you want about Joe Gibbs, but the team is light years better than it was before he got there.

 

[CalBear]

Say what you want about Joe Gibbs, but the team is light years better than it was before he got there.

Once again: "Better than Steve Spurrier" is not equivalent to "successful."

 

[AB in DC]

Say what you want about Joe Gibbs, but the team is light years better than it was before he got there.

Once again: "Better than Steve Spurrier" is not equivalent to "successful."

Did you even read the comment I was replying to?

 

[billyjoe]

Say what you want about Joe Gibbs, but the team is light years better than it was before he got there.

Once again: "Better than Steve Spurrier" is not equivalent to "successful."

Light years better?Can we still vote? Gibbs was an epic failure in his 2nd term, and the Skins are more or less a huge mess. And how did Zorn get this job?

 

[FavreCo]

Say what you want about Joe Gibbs, but the team is light years better than it was before he got there.

Once again: "Better than Steve Spurrier" is not equivalent to "successful."

Light years better?Can we still vote? Gibbs was an epic failure in his 2nd term, and the Skins are more or less a huge mess. And how did Zorn get this job?

No one else wanted it. Zorn made the mistake of taking it.

 

[Andy Herron]

No, simply put.

Dan Snyder brought him back in hopes of bringing the Redskins back to prominence, which is what he has continually tried to do.

It didn't work, and Joe went back to NASCAR.

Sure, they had some small increments of success, but not at all what was expected, hoped, or desired.

You have to ask yourself this,... would you bring him back again?

No.

There was no "real" success there. It didn't work.

As a longtime Cowboys fan, I miss that old rivalry from the Tom Landry/George Allen days, or even the previous Joe Gibbs era, but it didn't happen.

Just some perspective from the other side of the fence.

From one longtime Cowboys fan, I enjoy the rivalry of today's Eagles and Giants games, but I honestly miss the old Redskins days.

Those were classic, by all standards. Those games were "spittin' teeth" kind of stuff.

 

[Neil Beaufort Zod]

I thought he did a pretty good job. He showed that he can still coach in the NFL and be decent.

Of course, "decent" isn't living up to what you'd expect from Joe Gibbs. But if anyone thought the game had passed him by and he was done, he showed he still belonged in the fraternity of coaches. It's not like he had awesome talent and underachieved. He has nothing to be ashamed of.

 

[Sam Quentin]

He turned that frachise around, and if he'd had a decent QB, then who knows how deep they could have gone in the playoffs?

 

[KnowledgeReignsSupreme]

Say what you want about Joe Gibbs, but the team is light years better than it was before he got there.

Once again: "Better than Steve Spurrier" is not equivalent to "successful."

Light years better?Can we still vote? Gibbs was an epic failure in his 2nd term, and the Skins are more or less a huge mess. And how did Zorn get this job?

They look like less of a mess compared to week 1. Got some good tests coming up.

 

[fatness]

No one else wanted it. Zorn made the mistake of taking it.

I guess somebody should tell Zorn he made a mistake. He's taking it seriously, starting to act like a real coach and stuff.

 

[JohnnyU]

No one else wanted it. Zorn made the mistake of taking it.

I guess somebody should tell Zorn he made a mistake. He's taking it seriously, starting to act like a real coach and stuff.

I really like Zorn. He showed his inexperience early, and no doubt he will again, but he exudes confidence. I believe that will translate over to his team in the long run. Hiring Zorn is the best thing Danny boy has done since buying that team.

 

[T Bell]

No one else wanted it. Zorn made the mistake of taking it.

I guess somebody should tell Zorn he made a mistake. He's taking it seriously, starting to act like a real coach and stuff.

I really like Zorn. He showed his inexperience early, and no doubt he will again, but he exudes confidence. I believe that will translate over to his team in the long run. Hiring Zorn is the best thing Danny boy has done since buying that team.

Zorn doesn't seem to realize that he's not supposed to be successful as an "unqualified head coaching hire", and I love what he's doing with that offense. Also, that team has absolutely bought into what he's doing.

 

[KnowledgeReignsSupreme]

Looking good.

 

[T Bell]

No, simply put.Dan Snyder brought him back in hopes of bringing the Redskins back to prominence, which is what he has continually tried to do.It didn't work, and Joe went back to NASCAR.Sure, they had some small increments of success, but not at all what was expected, hoped, or desired.You have to ask yourself this,... would you bring him back again?No.There was no "real" success there. It didn't work.As a longtime Cowboys fan, I miss that old rivalry from the Tom Landry/George Allen days, or even the previous Joe Gibbs era, but it didn't happen.Just some perspective from the other side of the fence.From one longtime Cowboys fan, I enjoy the rivalry of today's Eagles and Giants games, but I honestly miss the old Redskins days.Those were classic, by all standards. Those games were "spittin' teeth" kind of stuff.

Do you still long for the old version of this rivalry?FWIW, Zorn won today with about 90% of the players having been brought on board by Gibbs, and with a good half or so of his coaching staff hired by Gibbs. I'd say that Gibbs did a good job assembling this team and staff, and now they're taking off with a guy whose offense and confident approach are not inhibited by a 12-year absence from the league that dulled his game day skills.

 

[buster c]

No, simply put.Dan Snyder brought him back in hopes of bringing the Redskins back to prominence, which is what he has continually tried to do.It didn't work, and Joe went back to NASCAR.Sure, they had some small increments of success, but not at all what was expected, hoped, or desired.You have to ask yourself this,... would you bring him back again?No.There was no "real" success there. It didn't work.As a longtime Cowboys fan, I miss that old rivalry from the Tom Landry/George Allen days, or even the previous Joe Gibbs era, but it didn't happen.Just some perspective from the other side of the fence.From one longtime Cowboys fan, I enjoy the rivalry of today's Eagles and Giants games, but I honestly miss the old Redskins days.Those were classic, by all standards. Those games were "spittin' teeth" kind of stuff.

Do you still long for the old version of this rivalry?FWIW, Zorn won today with about 90% of the players having been brought on board by Gibbs, and with a good half or so of his coaching staff hired by Gibbs. I'd say that Gibbs did a good job assembling this team and staff, and now they're taking off with a guy whose offense and confident approach are not inhibited by a 12-year absence from the league that dulled his game day skills.

mods, please close the thread - this is the right answer.I'll simply add that Gibbs took in a host of undisciplined boys and turned them into men, teaching them how to win on and off the field. his presence alone restored the franchise.

 

[fatness]

FWIW, Zorn won today with about 90% of the players having been brought on board by Gibbs, and with a good half or so of his coaching staff hired by Gibbs. I'd say that Gibbs did a good job assembling this team and staff, and now they're taking off with a guy whose offense and confident approach are not inhibited by a 12-year absence from the league that dulled his game day skills.

That's the most accurate description I've seen of how the Redskins got where they are today.