September 30, 2004
Gibbsday Night Gibbsball
by Dave Sabo
HoustonProFootball.com
Since Li’l Danny Snyder played his last card and lured former ‘Skins head coach and demigod, Joe Gibbs, out of retirement to coach his laughingstock, a typical conversation with a random ‘Skins fan over the last nine months has gone something like this:
“Now that the Gibbsington Gibbskins have Joe back, they’ll be hoisting the Gibbs Trophy at the Gibbsper Bowl in Gibbsonville next Gibbsuary!!! Picking up gibbs agent quartergibbs, Mark Brugibbs, and gibbsing cornergibbs, Champ Gibbsly for running gibbs Gibbston Portis was pure gibbs!!!! Joe’s gibbsed all his old gibsses and this gibbs can’t gibbs!!!! Man, Gibbs!!! They’re gonna gibbs the gibbs all gibbs gibbs!!! Gibbs, gibbs, gibbs!!!!!! Gibbsgibbsgibbsgibbsgibbsgibbs!!!!! GIBBS!!!!!!”
Get the picture? No playoffs since ’99? No problem, Gibbs is back! Twenty five new guys on the roster? Gibbs’ll turn ‘em all into Hall of Famers! Looming salary cap problems? Gibbs’ll overpay Mark Brunell and trade the best young shutdown corner in the game for a running back that no longer runs behind Denver’s zone blocking scheme! A gigantic meteor is headed for the city? Gibbs’ll save us!!!!!
People are literally that deluded around here. Logic (what little your typical Deadskin fan can usually muster) has flown out the window. The answer to any problem plaguing the team is, “Joe Gibbs”. You could hear the printers churning out Super Bowl tickets in the background during the press conference announcing his hiring. People around here just take it as a given that this team is winning the Super Bowl because they hired Joe Gibbs.
The team’s flagship radio station runs a 60-second Deadskin update every morning; just a blurb about practice or a quote about the upcoming opponent, stuff like that. The name of the segment? “Return to Glory!!” And, yes, you can hear both exclamation points in the intro. It’s nice to see they’re not putting any pressure on the guy.
Once the season got underway, everything went according to plan. Kinda. They beat a decimated and woeful Bucaneers squad at home. Yeah, they looked awful doing it, but they won, thank Joe! And while they did drop one to the Giants, hey, that was because they turned the ball over seven times and that doesn’t change the fact that they got Gibbs back and are going to win the Super Bowl.
Then, a funny thing happened on the “Return to Glory!!”; Joe Gibbs got flat out-coached last Monday night.
The buildup to the Cryboy game was horrific. When the fact that, over the last seven seasons, the ‘Skins were 12 and 2 vs dallas was brought up, it was pointed out that Gibbs was coaching them now. When the fact that the ‘Skins, under Gibbs, were 6 and 11 vs Bill Parcells, it was pointed out that Gibbs was coaching them now. Whenever anybody said anything at all, the response was, “Joe Gibbs”.
The ‘Skins were in it all night despite a couple of awful calls that went against them as well as being victimized by the same halfback option that Parcells was victimizing Gibbs and the ‘Skins with back in the ‘80’s. That’s right, twenty years later and the man inspiring the “Return to Glory!!” still hadn’t figured that one out.
Regardless, the ‘Skins were driving to move into position for a tying field goal. After Rod Gardner made a marvelous catch on a 46-yard pass from Brunell to the Cryboys 21-yard line, the ‘Skins were in perfect position to call a timeout and attempt the Figgie with six seconds left. Except, they didn’t have any timeouts left. Why? Because Gibbs wasted ‘em all. The first, debating whether or not to go for it on fourth and one late in the third quarter. The second, because he didn’t have a play ready coming out of a Cryboy replay challenge and the third (and most egregious) was wasted challenging a Terry Glenn touchdown that people in the last rows of the upper deck of Fed-Ex Field saw he caught in bounds. It was just a truly sophomoric display of incompetent game management by Gibbs.
Throw in the fact that his defense made Vinny Testaverde look like Johnny Unitas and that he stopped using his best offensive player, Portis, in the second half and one would guess that there’d be a lot of re-evaluation of Gibbs on Tuesday morning.
Nope. We got the steady mantra of losers everywhere, “It was the referees fault!” Say what you want about Tony Kornheiser, but he’s the only one in town that’s been willing to point out the obvious in regards to Gibbs’ performance. The rest of the true believers are still packing for Jacksonville.
I have a lot of respect for what Joe Gibbs has done in the NFL, and it pained me greatly when I heard that he had signed on with Washington because I didn’t want to root against him. On the other hand, rooting for him meant supporting the second most vile scumbag in the NFL. What to do? I got over my conflicted feelings on the subject during the post-game wind-up. Parcells came over for the post-game handshake and Gibbs half-heartedly swung his hand in Parcells direction. Calling it a wave would be too generous. Gibbs never stopped walking and he never looked in Parcells direction. Basically, he acted in a manner I would expect out of a horse’s ass like Parcells, but even that fat bastard has more integrity.
Ever since he accepted the job, the silver lining for me has been that at least some of Joe Gibbs class and professionalism should rub off on that bush league organization. Turns out, Li’l Danny’s rubbing off on Gibbs. When the Hall of Famer hired to lead the “Return to Glory” gets overmatched at home on national television, what’s next? No matter how bad it got in DC, the prospect that Joe Gibbs would come out of retirement was always there to fall back on. Now, ‘Skins fans don’t even have that.
Dontcha love it?
Dave Sabo’s advice to you is to start drinking heavily. Better listen to him, he’s in pre-med.