Agree with this statement? "The short sighted moves Gibbs made over and over again KILLED this team's future"

[hail2skins]

When you splash the kind of money splashed through that time on high profile FA's, and still muddle around the cellar of your division with no sniff of the post season in reality, your a laughing stock. We were, and that's how fans Nation wide viewed us.

That's not just context, that's reality.

If you'll make that claim, you'll also have to accept that the same thing was done in 2006 smack in the middle of Gibbs 2.0 when Joe was part of the decision-making process.

That is reality as well.

[Darrell Green Fan]

watched Americas's Game last night, the '81 49ers...reminded me of this thread when Randy Cross said:

(paraphrased)

"we were the laughing stock of the league, it was hard to win games, hard...we were so happy to get to .500 ... .500 man, we were that bad, that getting to .500 was a great accomplishment for us"

of course, they went on to win the Super Bowl that year, but they were very happy to get to .500 cause they were a very poor team for a long time. if they hadnt went to the Super Bowl that year, they still would of been happy that they improved.

everyones bar is always set high...but there is room for improvement and discounting that improvement as "not setting the bar high enough" is just wrong.

I remember when we traded Charlie Brown to the Falcolns for Bill Fraleck (spell) he came in and said "everyone around here is disappointed that the team only went 10-6 last year. If we went 10-6 in Atlanta they'd throw us a parade".

Damn we had it good when 10-6 was a "down year". Thank you Coach Gibbs and Bobby Bethard.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

If you'll make that claim, you'll also have to accept that the same thing was done in 2006 smack in the middle of Gibbs 2.0 when Joe was part of the decision-making process.

That is reality as well.

Wouldn't argue with that at all. How the momentum was lost from '05's run-in is beyond me. Portis going down amongst others didn't help, but that's no excuse. 2006 was another shocking season in a LONG line of shocking season's. This one under Gibbs.

Hail.

*Edit* I'll go further and say '07 was turning out little better until the tragic events that robbed us of #21. But that's when Coach came into his own as a master man-manager. To get a run to the play-off's from such depths, with a 36 year old QB who hadn't started a game in over 10 years ranks RIGHT up there with the 3 Lombardi's as his greatest coaching achievement for me.

[HEavyJumbo85]

I said it during, and I'll say it after. Super Bowls are one heck of an achievement, but taking a team owned by Dan Snyder and run by Vinny Cerrato, to the postseason twice, and even managing to win a game, may have been the greatest coaching job he has ever done. In retrospect it was a damn near miracle.

If you honestly thought they were relying on a 65 year old man to rebuild and restructure a franchise for the future from the sidelines, over a 4 year span, then you had the wrong expectations. He wasn't here to sacrifice the last few years of his coaching life to set up the organization for the future. He sure as heck didn't owe that to the fans or to the Redskins. He owed it to himself and to Dan Snyder to try and win football games, and he did, despite incredible adversity.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

I said it during, and I'll say it after. Super Bowls are one heck of an achievement, but taking a team owned by Dan Snyder and run by Vinny Cerrato, to the postseason twice, and even managing to win a game, may have been the greatest coaching job he has ever done. In retrospect it was a damn near miracle.

If you honestly thought they were relying on a 65 year old man to rebuild and restructure a franchise for the future from the sidelines, over a 4 year span, then you had the wrong expectations. He wasn't here to sacrifice the last few years of his coaching life to set up the organization for the future. He sure as heck didn't owe that to the fans or to the Redskins. He owed it to himself and to Dan Snyder to try and win football games, and he did, despite incredible adversity.

How hard is this for people to both grasp and acknowledge?

Hail.

[hail2skins]

Some folks will say that if Gibbs 2.0 was constructed as "win-now," not getting to a Super Bowl means that it was a failure. To me that's a bit harsh. But look at reality.......in those four years, this team didn't even win the division (although you can argue that we got further in the 2005 playoffs than the division winning Giants). To me, if you're going for "win now," its expected that you are going to do it on a larger scale that merely two #6 seeds........regardless of whatever context you want to put it in relative to the team's (lack of) success over the past decade.

But I think a lot of grandiose expectations went out the window when the 2006 season fizzled early on and we started Campbell halfway through that season. Even though over time (through Zorn's tenure) we eventually found that JC was not the guy for the job, I certainly didn't have great expectations for him in his first full season of 2007.

[Redskins4ever]

If there was anything that Gibbs did wrong his second time around was not firing Cerratto. Marty Schottenheimer fired Cerratto and for good reason. Gibbs should have fired Cerratto when he came back and hired a new GM. Seeing as though Gibbs hadn't been a GM previously, this is one of the miscalculations that he made when he came back in 2004. But Cerratto remained and look at what happened.

[JPCreativelab]

i think this fits within this thread, but i would just like to point out that i think Brunell was a failure here with the Skins. But i still love the guy for the two TD passes to Moss to win against Dallas on MNF....

some may say that Brunell was useless here, which technically would be correct, but I cant help but love the guy for that game. Doesn't come close to my love for the '82 super bowl team, but its still love, and no matter what anyone else says about records and statistics...that was a great moment.

so i guess my point is...i find gems in the crap...and i cherish those gems until what i really want happens (ie. super bowl win)...you cant fault people for that thinking. i still have high expectations for the team, but will cut them some slack when they do make me happy.

[The Tris]

How hard is this for people to both grasp and acknowledge?

Hail.

While I acknowledge that any coach is going to have an uphill battle in front of them due to our ownership as well as the make up of the roster (both in 2004 and in 2008 and in 2010, etc), I refuse to accept that it is a forgone conclusion that we will never will a Super Bowl so long as Dan Snyder owns the team.

To accept that the pinacle of our achievement, the most we could hope for in a miracle season, is a 10-6 record and a wild card birth, is pathetic.

The road a coach has in fixing the Redskins is no more difficult that the road that faced some of the other laughing stocks of the league this past decade. Many of them seemed to figured a way around the massive roster challenges and ownership hurdles.

[Darrell Green Fan]

How hard is this for people to both grasp and acknowledge?

Hail.

We all get it. For the last time I have been arguing the position that Joe Gibbs left the team in great shape when he left.

As for Shanny is everyone so jaded by all the disappointment of the past that we fail to see any hope? I'm not crazy about coaches having the personnel decisions but if you look at his draft record his last few years in Denver they were excellent. He got teams led by Brian Griese and Jake Plummer to the playoff for God's sake. Other than the McNabb trade, which was made out of desperation to try to find a QB he really has not shown the overspending ways and disregard of the draft that Cerratto and dare I say Gibbs 2 have shown. I may be in the minority here but I believe in Shanallahan.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

While I acknowledge that any coach is going to have an uphill battle in front of them due to our ownership as well as the make up of the roster (both in 2004 and in 2008 and in 2010, etc), I refuse to accept that it is a forgone conclusion that we will never will a Super Bowl so long as Dan Snyder owns the team.

To accept that the pinacle of our achievement, the most we could hope for in a miracle season, is a 10-6 record and a wild card birth, is pathetic.

Absolutely. You'd be nuts to accept that as the most we could achieve under Snyders tenure.

BTW, who said that should be the limit of your aspirations?

Hail.

[Hitman21ST]

Absolutely. You'd be nuts to accept that as the most we could achieve under Snyders tenure.

BTW, who said that should be the limit of your aspirations?

Hail.

Everyone who's said "we'll never win the Super Bowl with Snyder as our owner"

Can't recall names specifically, but I do remember reading that from at least 5 or 6 different posters.

[HEavyJumbo85]

I also kind of disagree with the premise that Gibbs made short-sighted moves, or at least the notion that beacuse they were short sighted implies that they were bad.Tthe move itself to hire Gibbs was a short sighted move. He did was he was asked to do.

[hail2skins]

BTW, who said that should be the limit of your aspirations?

Every thread that comes up about Gibbs, plenty of posters make the comment "he made the playoffs twice in four years," as if that's some sort of magnificent achievement. As you've said, perhaps in the context of how the Skins have fared since he left the first time, yes. But from an overall perspective, not really. Although one can make the case that he might have made more appearances if he had either a) stuck around longer (which I don't blame him for not doing) or had been hired earlier in Snyder's tenure, and probably giving him a longer timeline to work with.

Begs the question of how we would define a successful Shanahan tenure in DC. I would consider Coughlin's run in NY to have been pretty successful.

[Darrell Green Fan]

I also kind of disagree with the premise that Gibbs made short-sighted moves, or at least the notion that beacuse they were short sighted implies that they were bad.Tthe move itself to hire Gibbs was a short sighted move. He did was he was asked to do.

Damn just when I was about to move on this shows up. You don't think the following were bad moves:

3rd for Duckett in a panic move plain and simple

3rd and 4th for Brandon Lloyd

3rd for Brunnel when he was about to be cut

4th for an old Pete Kendall

2nd along with Portis for Champ. Sure Champ was going to leave but a shutdown HOF corner is harder to come by than than a RB. Should have been an even trade of player for player.

1st, 3rd and 4th for Jason Campbell.

2nd to move up to draft Rocky Macintosh

$10 million bonuses for AA and ARE

[KDawg]

Begs the question of how we would define a successful Shanahan tenure in DC. I would consider Coughlin's run in NY to have been pretty successful.

Shanahan is getting the first real crack at team building here. He was given the job, a competent GM and he is running with it. How he fares is entirely on him, if you ask me.

Coughlin has, without a doubt, been successful. He won the Super Bowl and he got there prior to that. That's success. Even if he gets fired next year, he had a hell of a run.

---------- Post added May-24th-2011 at 01:02 PM ----------

I also kind of disagree with the premise that Gibbs made short-sighted moves, or at least the notion that beacuse they were short sighted implies that they were bad.Tthe move itself to hire Gibbs was a short sighted move. He did was he was asked to do.

I agree with the bolded portion. For sure.

But, we made some awful moves. Not even because they were short sighted. They were just bad.

[The Tris]

Who said that should be the limit of your aspirations?

Anyone who believes what Gibbs achieved over the course of four years was a miracle.

[JPCreativelab]

Absolutely. You'd be nuts to accept that as the most we could achieve under Snyders tenure.

BTW, who said that should be the limit of your aspirations?

Hail.

i think that bolded part is what i have issues with in this thread. just because a person can find good in an otherwise bad situation, does not mean they feel that they have reached the limit of their aspirations for the team. i haven't seen anyone say that what Gibbs did was exactly what their expectations were for him and the team.

[hail2skins]

i think that bolded part is what i have issues with in this thread. just because a person can find good in an otherwise bad situation, does not mean they feel that they have reached the limit of their aspirations for the team. i haven't seen anyone say that what Gibbs did was exactly what their expectations were for him and the team.

Well, when you have people throw around statements like "what Gibbs did was NEAR-MIRACULOUS!," what conclusions are you supposed to draw?

Put it this way: Its January 2004, and Gibbs has just been hired. If someone were to tell you that we would have two wild-card appearances and two sub-.500 seasons and that he would leave after four years, would you be happy with that?

[KDawg]

Anyone who believes what Gibbs achieved over the course of four years was a miracle.

Who said anything about a miracle? (Someone may have, but I haven't seen it...Either that or I skimmed over its absurdity)

[HEavyJumbo85]

But, we made some awful moves. Not even because they were short sighted. They were just bad.

Exactly, I never said they weren't. The moves were bad because they were bad, not because they were short sighted. Why were people expecting a short sighted move to lead to long term gains? People seem upset that he neglected the long term in favor of the short term, but he was just doing exactly what he was hired to do.

[JPCreativelab]

Well, when you have people throw around statements like "what Gibbs did was NEAR-MIRACULOUS!," what conclusions are you supposed to draw?

Put it this way: Its January 2004, and Gibbs has just been hired. If someone were to tell you that we would have two wild-card appearances and two sub-.500 seasons and that he would leave after four years, would you be happy with that?

well you can draw a conclusion on those people, no need to throw blanket statements out there that the whole fan base needs to look at other fan bases to see how real fan expectations work...

and of course i wouldnt be happy with that, and i wasnt happy with it after the fact either. my view point is, he was a failure, but he did some good things, and i am happy about those good things.

it doesnt make my expectations or aspirations any less by finding some good in that time period.

[The Tris]

Who said anything about a miracle? (Someone may have, but I haven't seen it...Either that or I skimmed over its absurdity)

I said it during, and I'll say it after. Super Bowls are one heck of an achievement, but taking a team owned by Dan Snyder and run by Vinny Cerrato, to the postseason twice, and even managing to win a game, may have been the greatest coaching job he has ever done. In retrospect it was a damn near miracle.

How hard is this for people to both grasp and acknowledge?

Hail.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

Anyone who believes what Gibbs achieved over the course of four years was a miracle.

How in the heck do you equate one with other?

Either your taking everything totally out of context, or you just really are that obtuse. Or maybe your just being as obstinately awkward as you can be for the heck of it.

Being as you flippantly ignore everything that's said, and only read what you want to believe, I honestly don't know which it is.

Seriously, how doe's someone saying how Gibbs took a team to the playoffs in such adversity equate to "that's the limit of our aspirations?"

Hail.

[HEavyJumbo85]

I stand by that, albeit it was slightly toungue in cheek. I mean, if you don't think a 5 game winning streak + a playoff win with Mark Brunnell (who everyone says is terrible) playing on one leg, then making a similar run a few years later with Todd Collins who hadn't taken an NFL snap in 10 years isn't somewhat miraculous, I'd like to see your definition of a miracle sir. We talk about expectations not being high enough, I think there needs to be a realistic approach taken, or you will always be disappointed.