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Gibbs: "I live to play a game like this one. I live to play this guy." = THE ATTITUDE WE NEED SUNDAY!

Diss

By Diss
in The Stadium

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Diss

Diss

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As long-suffering fans know, the Redskins weren't always the team other teams "got well on." There was a time when this team put other teams in the frigging dirt. There was a time when this team got OTHER coaches fired instead of their own. There was a time when this team understood when they were playing a game of huge import and responded accordingly. Can THIS team finally adopt that mantle? We'll see on Sunday.

If they're going to have a chance to do it, they need to respond to the Eagles the way the Redskins responded to them in 1990. They'd been humiliated on national TV weeks before, just as this team was last year, in the infamous "body bag" game. When they faced the Eagles again (and Papa Loudmouth Ryan) in the playoffs later that year, they responded by beating the living crap out of that team (which included the athletic and mobile Randall Cunningham), ending their season and getting Papa Loudmouth s-canned. That's what I call revenge.

Sunday, we can do perhaps the same thing. We can effectively end the Eagles season, and potentially set the wheels in motion to ending Andy Reid's career. I honestly think that if the Eagles continue to freefall, this team is blown up at the end of the year, at least from a coaching standpoint.

This isn't just a game on Sunday - this is a chance to take a LONGTERM advantage on a division opponent that's abused us for over a decade. This is a chance to shift the balance of power in the East.

This is a MUST-WIN game. Period.

The excerpt below comes from "The Redskins Book." I found it online here. Read this account of Gibbs at his absolute greatest and tell me, I dare you, that you're not ready to froth at the mouth on Sunday and put the Eagle Empire out of business.

Joe Gibbs was mad. Sputtering mad. Red-faced mad. Punch-the-wall mad. The subject was Philadelphia Eagles Coach Buddy Ryan, and the more Gibbs talked about him, the madder he got. The words came in angry bursts, as if Gibbs were ready to deck the questioner, as if he hoped that Ryan would feel the punch in Philadelphia.

"I live to play a game like this one," Gibbs said. "I live to play this guy."

It was the first week of 1991, and the Redskins were facing a playoff game against the Eagles. While the Redskins had missed the playoffs the two previous seasons, Gibbs had lost none of his magic, especially in motivating his team. To help get the Redskins ready for the Eagles, he had taunted his players, saying:

"If you lose this game, Buddy Ryan is going to call you a bunch of fat asses like he did last time. If you don't mind being called a bunch of fat asses, that's your business."

Now it was two days before kickoff. In the parking lot at Redskin Park, Gibbs' car was still covered with snow that had fallen four days earlier. He had arrived for work late Sunday night after a meaningless December 30 victory over Buffalo to end the regular season, had spent New Year's Eve there and still had not left. During a break in a late-night meeting with his coaches, he encountered a reporter he knew well, and he finally let loose with thoughts and emotions he had long been holding back from the public.

In fact, for three days Gibbs had stood grim-faced and silent as reporters peppered him with questions about Ryan and the Eagles.

That very day, Ryan had joked about how uptight Gibbs probably was, while he, Ryan, was loose and confident, knowing that he had a Super Bowl contender. Indeed, to help prepare for the Redskins, Ryan had taken his Eagles to Tampa, the site of Super Bowl XXVI, for a week of practice. "We plan to be back here," he said with a smile.

Yet when journalists pressed Gibbs to comment on Ryan, they got nothing. "Jump into the conversation at any point, Joe," one reporter joked. But Gibbs stood firm, arms folded across his chest, smiling a half-smile, simply talking about the challenge ahead.

Until that Wednesday night. Then the floodgates burst. Then the fury against Ryan poured out. Then it was clear that this would be more than a playoff game. Why? After all the big games the Redskins had played, why did this one take on such an extra dimension?

At Redskin Park, the answer was simple. Two months earlier, in a nationally televised Monday night game at Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium, the Eagles had beaten the Redskins badly. They had knocked nine Redskins, including two quarterbacks, out of the game. Five Redskins had to be carried off the field. The final score, 28-14, scarcely reflected the severity of the whipping.

Worse than the defeat were the accompanying insults. As the game wore down, an Eagle reacted to one injured Redskin lying on the turf by yelling, "Do you guys need any more body bags?" Another time an Eagle shouted, "You guys are going to need an extra bus just to carry all the stretchers!"

After the game it was even worse. The Eagles publicly poked fun at the Redskins, with Eagles defensive tackle Jerome Brown telling reporters, "They acted like they didn't want to play us anymore."

At Redskin Park, that game became known as The Body Bag Game, and it would be hard to underestimate its effect on a proud team filled with veterans like Joe Jacoby, Jeff Bostic, Earnest Byner, Art Monk and others. That game became the chief rallying cry for a stunning three-year run.

When the Redskins filed off their bus outside the Vet for that playoff game on January 4, 1991, they were stone-faced and determined. Gibbs had injected a Notre Dame-Miami hatred into them — and on the Redskins' first play from scrimmage, he was amazed by what he saw.

"The line of scrimmage just exploded," Gibbs said later. "Our guys knocked Philadelphia about seven yards back. That's the kind of day it had been. In that situation, you either run and hide or you respond like a champion. Our guys responded like champions."

The Redskins, in fact, played their best game since routing Denver in Super Bowl XXII. Rypien earned his playoff spurs with two touchdown passes. Byner chalked up 126 total yards. The Redskins defense forced three turnovers. Best of all was the sweet revenge of the final score: Redskins 20, Eagles 6.

"People threw dirt on us all year," Monte Coleman said. "They didn't know we had shovels."

Surely Ryan and the Eagles had never dreamed that their words would awaken an entire organization. The Redskins would win 23 of their next 28 games. They would make three straight playoff appearances and win their first-round contest each time. The season after the Body Bag Game, they would rip through the NFL like few teams in history, winning their first 11 regular-season games and then rolling over the Buffalo Bills, 37-24, in Super Bowl XXVI.

If there had been no Buddy Ryan, would there still have been a victory in Super Bowl XXVI? That's impossible to say, since other factors also contributed to the Redskins' success. Art Monk, for example, had surprised everybody in early December with his request for a players-only meeting in which he made the rare, put-up-or-shut-up plea that moved many teammates (see profile on Page 167). But great coaches, including Gibbs, have always said that great teams have an indefinable magic. "Somewhere a team finds a spark," Gibbs said. The Redskins of 1991 — with a little help from Joe Gibbs — found their main spark in Buddy Ryan.

It's time to find our spark at the expense of the Eagles once again.

It's time to stop playing DOWN to the level of our opponents and play UP to the standards of our legacy.

End Philly.

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DC9

DC9

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Read this account of Gibbs at his absolute greatest and tell me, I dare you, that you're not ready to froth at the mouth on Sunday and put the Eagle Empire out of business.

Woo, I'm ready to hit anything green right now. I better be careful on my way home from work the next two days. Great write up!

HAIL!

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Jacoby6644

Jacoby6644

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Great post Diss. The Redskins have a great opportunity here. They can get revenge for 59-28 but whoopin' from last year, on home turf. They can effectively end the Eagles season on Sunday. They can cement their possition in the division as a favorite to win it: Dallas playing the Pats (looks like a loss), and the Giants in what should be a shoot out with the Bills (could be a loss), the Eagles would be 1-5.

I agree, MUST WIN, if they want to control their destiny. If you can't get up for this type of game there must be something wrong!!!!!!!!!!

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Califan007 The Constipated

Califan007 The Constipated

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Some inaccuracies in the book there:

1) I highly doubt Gibbs would say the word Ass, unless he was reading a bible talking about a donkey. He probably said butts instead.

2) The SB in Tampa was SB 25, not 26.

But that is a great story.

1) I have little doubt that Gibbs could and would say "ass" if motivated and angry enough lol...

2) The game was during the 1990 season playoffs, so going to Tampa would have been correct.

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Diss

Diss

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1) I have little doubt that Gibbs could and would say "ass" if motivated and angry enough lol...

2) The game was during the 1990 season playoffs, so going to Tampa would have been correct.

Exactly. Neither of those points were inaccurate. Ryan thought his team would be playing in Super Bowl 25, when in fact he'd never won a playoff game and never did in his career as a head coach.

As for "ass," I'm sure Gibbs rationalized it due to the fact that he was merely repeating what Ryan had said.

There's always something exciting about guys like Ryan who talked a lot and had such a bad-ass (sorry, "butt") reputation. But if they don't deliver, they quickly end up looking like jokes, which is what's happening to Rexy (not the "Sexy" Rexy, but the Ryan Rexy) at the moment, too. But that's for another thread.

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#98QBKiller

#98QBKiller

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If the team feels like I do after reading this, they will be fired up and knock the Iggles on their asses. Man this should be posted somewhere at Redskins park.

Agreed. Someone send this to London Fletcher right now.

Great thread and all I have to say is if we put the Eagles down in the dirt on Sunday, I'm popping bottles.

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Califan007 The Constipated

Califan007 The Constipated

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Exactly. Neither of those points were inaccurate. Ryan thought his team would be playing in Super Bowl 25, when in fact he'd never won a playoff game and never did in his career as a head coach.

As for "ass," I'm sure Gibbs rationalized it due to the fact that he was merely repeating what Ryan had said.

There's always something exciting about guys like Ryan who talked a lot and had such a bad-ass (sorry, "butt") reputation. But if they don't deliver, they quickly end up looking like jokes, which is what's happening to Rexy at the moment, too. But that's for another thread.

Huh?...How is Rex looking like a joke? He said the Skins would win the east...he didn't say he was a top 10 QB.

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Diss

Diss

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I think he was talking about rex ryan. Maybe.

Yes. Rex Ryan, not Grossman. If Rex RYAN continues losing, all his bloviating, as entertaining as it is, is going to make him look very foolish, just like his father.

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