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Struggling savior
If Skins' Joe Gibbs isn't having second thoughts, perhaps he should
Posted: Monday November 15, 2004 9:07PM; Updated: Monday November 15, 2004 9:07PM
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 Commanders than any of us realize.
If you're scoring at home, the Commanders 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 Commanders' 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 Commanders' 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 Commanders 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 Commanders 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 Commanders 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 Commanders 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 PatrickRamsey'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 Commanders 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 Commanders 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 Commanders, 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, Commanders 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.
Around the league
•The quirkiest division in the NFL is unquestionably the NFC North. Not only are all four teams bunched within a game of each other at 5-4 and 4-5, it's also the league's only division that features a winning record on the road but a losing record at home.
The Packers, Vikings, Lions and Bears are a combined 11-8 away from home, but just 7-10 when playing in front of their loyal fans. Three of the four teams have a better road mark than they do at home, with only Minnesota following tradition. The 5-4 Vikings are 3-1 at home and 2-3 on the road. Detroit and Chicago are both 1-3 at home, 3-2 on the road. Green Bay is 2-3 at home, 3-1 in away games.
Only one other division has a winning road record, the NFC East at 9-8 entering Monday night's Eagles at Cowboys game. The AFC South is .500 on the road, at 9-9.
•Here's a name you don't hear a lot in terms of coordinators who are hot head coaching prospects, but should: Baltimore defensive coordinator Mike Nolan. Though he has largely worked out of the spotlight since replacing Marvin Lewis as the Ravens' defensive coordinator in 2002, Nolan has seamlessly continued Baltimore's tradition for defensive dominance.
The Ravens have allowed an NFL-low 130 points this season, and again should send a host of players to the Pro Bowl. Nolan has been likened by many to Jim Mora, one of the league's success stories as Atlanta's first-year head coach. Like Mora, Nolan's track record as a defensive coordinator has had its ups and downs, but he's well respected by his fellow coaches in the league and his family background includes a father who was a successful NFL head coach (Dick Nolan, in San Francisco).
•Talk about your mind-boggling runs of domination. When the Rams raced to a 17-0 lead after just three possessions against the Seahawks on Sunday in St. Louis, it seemed the perfect capper to their dramatic Week 5 comeback victory at Seattle. In that game, the Rams were down 27-10 with 5:43 remaining in regulation, but won 33-27 in overtime when they scored on their final four possessions of the game. St. Louis put together its 23-0 run in an 8:45 span of regulation and overtime.
When you factor in the Rams' 17-0 start on Sunday, St. Louis scored on seven consecutive possessions against Seattle (five touchdowns and two field goals), rolling up a 40-0 edge in 26:27 of clock time. The Rams had nine plays of at least 20 yards in less than two quarters of action.
•Peyton Manning not only threw five touchdown passes for the third time already this season, tying the NFL record that Daunte Culpepper set earlier this year, but the Colts quarterback already has 31 touchdown passes in nine games, two more than he had all of last season, when he was the league's co-MVP. Manning has 20 touchdown passes in his past five games, or four per game.
There's only one word for all of that: Wow.
•Think about this: Manning wears No. 18 for the Colts. Johnny Unitas wore No. 19 for the Colts. Whoever winds up taking over for Manning in Indianapolis some day, I wouldn't issue the kid a No. 17 jersey. It's a pretty heavy numerical legacy to saddle someone with.
•On second thought, let's keep those game-day active rosters at 45 (plus a third quarterback) after all. Otherwise, with too many reserves available, we might not have had the quirky Week 10 pleasure of seeing backup quarterback Kordell Stewart punt for Baltimore, punter Craig Sauerbrun kick four extra points and the go-ahead 34-yard field goal for Carolina, and New England receiver Troy Brown, playing cornerback for the second week in a row, pick off a pass from his old Patriots teammate, Drew Bledsoe.
•Though he had only four catches for 26 yards heading into Week 8, rookie Ravens receiver Clarence Moore -- the team's second sixth-round pick from Northern Arizona -- has quickly developed into quarterback KyleBoller's go-to target in the past three games.
The 6-foot-6, 211-pound Moore has 10 catches for 151 yards in Baltimore's last three games, including his five-reception, two-touchdown day in the Ravens' overtime win at the Jets on Sunday. Oh, the inexact science of NFL drafting. Ravens receiver Travis Taylor, a top 10 pick in 2000, has 20 receptions for 237 yards and no touchdowns this season.
•Some good news as we head into Week 11 in the NFL: No more byes. All 32 teams have been granted their in-season vacation at some point from Week 3 to Week 10, and now we get 16 games a week from now until the playoffs commence.
If Skins' Joe Gibbs isn't having second thoughts, perhaps he should
Posted: Monday November 15, 2004 9:07PM; Updated: Monday November 15, 2004 9:07PM
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 Commanders than any of us realize.
If you're scoring at home, the Commanders 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 Commanders' 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 Commanders' 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 Commanders 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 Commanders 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 Commanders 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 Commanders 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 PatrickRamsey'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 Commanders 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 Commanders 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 Commanders, 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, Commanders 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.
Around the league
•The quirkiest division in the NFL is unquestionably the NFC North. Not only are all four teams bunched within a game of each other at 5-4 and 4-5, it's also the league's only division that features a winning record on the road but a losing record at home.
The Packers, Vikings, Lions and Bears are a combined 11-8 away from home, but just 7-10 when playing in front of their loyal fans. Three of the four teams have a better road mark than they do at home, with only Minnesota following tradition. The 5-4 Vikings are 3-1 at home and 2-3 on the road. Detroit and Chicago are both 1-3 at home, 3-2 on the road. Green Bay is 2-3 at home, 3-1 in away games.
Only one other division has a winning road record, the NFC East at 9-8 entering Monday night's Eagles at Cowboys game. The AFC South is .500 on the road, at 9-9.
•Here's a name you don't hear a lot in terms of coordinators who are hot head coaching prospects, but should: Baltimore defensive coordinator Mike Nolan. Though he has largely worked out of the spotlight since replacing Marvin Lewis as the Ravens' defensive coordinator in 2002, Nolan has seamlessly continued Baltimore's tradition for defensive dominance.
The Ravens have allowed an NFL-low 130 points this season, and again should send a host of players to the Pro Bowl. Nolan has been likened by many to Jim Mora, one of the league's success stories as Atlanta's first-year head coach. Like Mora, Nolan's track record as a defensive coordinator has had its ups and downs, but he's well respected by his fellow coaches in the league and his family background includes a father who was a successful NFL head coach (Dick Nolan, in San Francisco).
•Talk about your mind-boggling runs of domination. When the Rams raced to a 17-0 lead after just three possessions against the Seahawks on Sunday in St. Louis, it seemed the perfect capper to their dramatic Week 5 comeback victory at Seattle. In that game, the Rams were down 27-10 with 5:43 remaining in regulation, but won 33-27 in overtime when they scored on their final four possessions of the game. St. Louis put together its 23-0 run in an 8:45 span of regulation and overtime.
When you factor in the Rams' 17-0 start on Sunday, St. Louis scored on seven consecutive possessions against Seattle (five touchdowns and two field goals), rolling up a 40-0 edge in 26:27 of clock time. The Rams had nine plays of at least 20 yards in less than two quarters of action.
•Peyton Manning not only threw five touchdown passes for the third time already this season, tying the NFL record that Daunte Culpepper set earlier this year, but the Colts quarterback already has 31 touchdown passes in nine games, two more than he had all of last season, when he was the league's co-MVP. Manning has 20 touchdown passes in his past five games, or four per game.
There's only one word for all of that: Wow.
•Think about this: Manning wears No. 18 for the Colts. Johnny Unitas wore No. 19 for the Colts. Whoever winds up taking over for Manning in Indianapolis some day, I wouldn't issue the kid a No. 17 jersey. It's a pretty heavy numerical legacy to saddle someone with.
•On second thought, let's keep those game-day active rosters at 45 (plus a third quarterback) after all. Otherwise, with too many reserves available, we might not have had the quirky Week 10 pleasure of seeing backup quarterback Kordell Stewart punt for Baltimore, punter Craig Sauerbrun kick four extra points and the go-ahead 34-yard field goal for Carolina, and New England receiver Troy Brown, playing cornerback for the second week in a row, pick off a pass from his old Patriots teammate, Drew Bledsoe.
•Though he had only four catches for 26 yards heading into Week 8, rookie Ravens receiver Clarence Moore -- the team's second sixth-round pick from Northern Arizona -- has quickly developed into quarterback KyleBoller's go-to target in the past three games.
The 6-foot-6, 211-pound Moore has 10 catches for 151 yards in Baltimore's last three games, including his five-reception, two-touchdown day in the Ravens' overtime win at the Jets on Sunday. Oh, the inexact science of NFL drafting. Ravens receiver Travis Taylor, a top 10 pick in 2000, has 20 receptions for 237 yards and no touchdowns this season.
•Some good news as we head into Week 11 in the NFL: No more byes. All 32 teams have been granted their in-season vacation at some point from Week 3 to Week 10, and now we get 16 games a week from now until the playoffs commence.
