Was 1993 the Year it All Went Wrong?

[Dark Acre]

On 8/31/2020 at 3:45 AM, Darrell Green Fan said:

 

This is a very accurate recount of Brad Johnson.  You are right, his magic wore off by the end of the 1999 season and was totally gone by 2000 but nobody seems to remember that.  

We also kinda botched a totally-makeable field goal attempt against Tampa with 1:17 left when Dan Turk messed up the snap.  He didn't fly home with team and died of cancer on Christmas eve the next year.  He was 38.

[kleese]

For me the point isn’t that Cooke and Casserly and a Norv somehow “screwed” Snyder by leaving a mess. Even if it was the worst situation in NFL history a good owner would have figured it out in a shade less than 21 years. Even an average owner would have likely stumbled on some moderate success over that time. In now way is talking about 1993-1999 a “defense” of Snyder’s tenure. It’s been an F. There is no other way to put it. 
 

The reason I point out our organizational failures is to illustrate two main points: 

 

1. The initial post-Gibbs era was a total failure and that is NOT on Snyder. As illustrated in this thread JKC and Casserly swung and miss wildly on coaching hires and the draft during this era. Norv was a great offensive mind and a poor head coach. He could tantalize a bit and we certainly had reasonable chances to win/make playoffs under his leadership, but continually found ways to screw it up. It went on so long that I do think this constitutes an “era” of Redskins football— and it was a bad one. Just as bad (and in some cases worse) than what Snyder has produced. 1996-1997 remain the two most frustrating years of my fandom. So simply in the history books, that era stands alone for me a lost time for the franchise and it was all before Snyder arrived. 
 

2. Snyder took over a bad situation. We got lucky in 1999, but we also used major draft capital to get there. The NFC was horrendous that season and we took advantage. We actually made smart moves in the off-season to improve our deficiencies but couldn’t overcome the Norv factor in 2000. So the ship was kind of rudderless at that point; we had an old roster with very few good, young players. That’s when Snyder REALLY took over and well, we know what happened. 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

@kleese yep, the team had fallen on hard times way before Snyder. But, nothing they could have done differently would have prevented his ownership so I don't think there's an outcome (outside of someone else winning the bidding war) which prevents us from being in this boat. They could have won the Super Bowl in 1993-1998 and it still may have been impossible for John Kent Cooke to keep the team in that family. 

[drowland]

On 9/1/2020 at 2:48 PM, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

Casserly was no good...period. He rode the coattails of Beathard until 1989 and then really didn't do much that I can remember to build the 1991 team (those players were almost all in place before Beathard left). 

 

Casserly always saved his best for the end of his tenure.  His last drafts with the Skins and Texans were his best.  Also the Gilbert trade and the Saints trade should have set the Snyder era up for success.  So yeah he wasn't good overall but he did leave things in good shape for the next guy....which was Vinny.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

24 minutes ago, drowland said:

 

Casserly always saved his best for the end of his tenure.  His last drafts with the Skins and Texans were his best.  Also the Gilbert trade and the Saints trade should have set the Snyder era up for success.  So yeah he wasn't good overall but he did leave things in good shape for the next guy....which was Vinny.

 

That's a fair assessment

[KillBill26]

On 8/29/2020 at 9:27 PM, kleese said:

Yes, 1993 was the start. We were due for a rebuild so the fact that we went 4-12 wasn’t that huge a deal (although it was still a shock to the system for fans, myself included). But it was the start. 
 

We for sure wasted a year because we approached 1993 like we were trying to win the SB again. Passed the torch from Gibbs to Petitbone and pretty much kept the core together. Made a bunch of FA signings that were old older guys at the end of their careers. This added to our roster which also had a bunch of older guys at the end of the careers. 

I'm almost finished with Hail to the Redskins by Adam Lazarus.  Great book about the 1980s.   He talks about Beathard and Gibbs not seeing eye to eye on personnel.  Gibbs mentality was "hey, we've got a good thing going here, let's plug some holes and make another run at it." As opposed to beathard who had more of a long term vision and wanted to build through the draft.  Gibbs didn't want to develop players, he wanted veterans to win now.  This article alludes to that dynamic.

 

Bobby Beathard will resign as Washington Redskins general manager in a noon news conference today, and sources said increasing disagreement over personnel and philosophy with Coach Joe Gibbs is the overriding factor.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1989/05/05/beathard-to-resign-as-redskins-general-manager/bb2ee04f-d9fc-422e-89ff-ed996e1a14c5/

 

Those Gibbs teams were consistently good, but as the core of those teams aged, there was not a younger core in place to carry the torch.  So when those key contributors ran out of gas, we had very little talent.  And unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons, we are still trying to right the ship.

 

So the beginning of the end probably can be more directly pinpointed to earlier than 1993, bc the win now philosophy starting in the mid 80s put us in a hole we have never climbed out of.  

 

So my question to you all is this: would you rather have an inferior team in 87 and 91 and risk winning those titles, in exchange for a "build through the draft" and the long term approach that may have resulted in the Redskins being more competitive the last 25 years.  My answer:. ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!  Easy to say when the win now philosophy results in championships.  And it's a common disagreement: the win now coach vs the long term minded GM.  We are just very fortunate that when Gibbs pushed all the chips to the middle of the table, he was able to close the deal and win it all.  

 

Also, a more competent personnel team could've gotten the Redskins back on track fairly soon.   We had premium draft picks in desmond howard, heath shuler, and michael westbrook that busted big time.  Then came snyder.  Enough said.

[hail2skins]

I think its funny looking at the different perspectives depending on where we were in the cycle.  When Norv had us back around .500 (but with no playoffs until 1999) he was still trashed because he had immediately followed the glory years. When Jay basically had us at the same level record-wise (but did make the playoffs in 2015), many people thought he was doing a decent job because, comparatively speaking, he had followed many years of garbage. 

[Darth Tater]

If you look at the drafts from 1989 thru 1992, it was not that we did not try to build through the draft, we just failed to find the right people.  1983 saw 5 picks as total busts, including one we had spent capital for and another that became a journey backup. One of the picks that did work well was available due to the USFL. 1984 draft saw only one guy that indirectly contributed big. 1986 was the year we sold the farm to draft a guy who never played for us

 

[Dark Acre]

We also drafted guards with our first 2 picks many years ago. 

[Mania]

I actually think the downfall of the Redskins started when Beathard resigned in 1989.   Yes, we won a Super Bowl in 1991 due to the excellence of Joe Gibbs coaching and the talent that BB signed and drafted.  However the team was getting old and started to fold after Gibbs retired, so yes everything started to come to fruition at that point.   Petitbon and Norv along with Charley Casserly just screwed up the entire team.   Than it went straight to hell when Snyder got here.  Looking back at Gibbs second go around, he absolutely did an amazing job considering the talent around him.   We came a dropped interception from Rogers away from leading the Seahawks 10-0 and possibly advancing to the NFCCG.   

On 8/30/2020 at 6:28 AM, Darth Tater said:

The 1992 was the draft that confirmed my growing suspicion that Joe Gibbs was a targeter. Yes, a friend of mine who played for Gibbs (1986-1992) felt Gibbs retired because he did not want to go through another rebuild (1981, 1985, 1989) and the core those rebuilds centered around was now about to age out.

I completely disagree with your suspicion, but appreciate your opinion.   Gibbs would have been the perfect coach to rebuild a team and he isn't a quitter.   

[thebluefood]

I'm inclined to agree that the foundation began to come apart when Beathard left town, just as the foundation of the "glory years" was set when he was hired in 1978. I wasn't alive during those years so it's hard for me to grasp how important he was to this team's success in the 1980s.

[Darth Tater]

8 minutes ago, thebluefood said:

I'm inclined to agree that the foundation began to come apart when Beathard left town, just as the foundation of the "glory years" was set when he was hired in 1978. I wasn't alive during those years so it's hard for me to grasp how important he was to this team's success in the 1980s.

All Beathards drafts after 1981 were mediocre. While 1983 did get us a HOF and a pretty good bookend DE, pretty much the rest was a total bust. While you could argue that much of Beathards decline in drafting was due to the emerging political power of Gibbs (Bobby sure did and that was much of his argument with Pardee), his future drafts were nothing to write home about either.

[profusion]

It's stunning to think that we're discussing something that happened more than a generation ago, really a generation and a half. You have to be over 40 to truly remember the Redskins' golden age, and almost 50 to have seen all of it.

 

That's a big indictment of Dan Snyder, even without anything else.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

On 9/1/2020 at 10:45 PM, GothSkinsFan said:

We also kinda botched a totally-makeable field goal attempt against Tampa with 1:17 left when Dan Turk messed up the snap.  He didn't fly home with team and died of cancer on Christmas eve the next year.  He was 38.

 

We botched the snap and hold, yes. But Conway would have been expected to drill a pressure-packed 52-yard kick, so it's not exactly like it was a chippy. Also, we were only in that position to need the kick at the end because Brad Johnson did nothing all game. We scored 6 points on offense and BJ's interception in the 3rd is what woke up the Bucs. Before that, we were up 13-0 and they were sleepwalking. 

 

Edit...a little more context. That interception really was crushing. We took over about midway through the 3rd close to midfield after a DG pick and BJ just chucked a 2nd-down pass down the left sideline. That was the spark. If we even just get a first down and punt or go three-and-out and punt, they probably stay asleep all game. 

Edited September 8, 2020 by TD_washingtonredskins

[Dark Acre]

1 hour ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

We botched the snap and hold, yes. But Conway would have been expected to drill a pressure-packed 52-yard kick, so it's not exactly like it was a chippy.

You clearly did not witness the Greatest Robbery of All Time:  the refs not giving us that time-out with 1 second left in Dallas, down 35-34.  EVERYBODY knew Moseley was going to drill that 55 yarder, which is why the crooked refs let time expire.  So yeah, if Moseley with his brill cream and straight-on kicking style could nail a 55 yarder with 1 second left, in Dallas, win-the-division-or-go-home-to-smashed-TVs-throughout-the-DMV, Brett Conway could make a 52 yarder.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

4 minutes ago, GothSkinsFan said:

You clearly did not witness the Greatest Robbery of All Time:  the refs not giving us that time-out with 1 second left in Dallas, down 35-34.  EVERYBODY knew Moseley was going to drill that 55 yarder, which is why the crooked refs let time expire.  So yeah, if Moseley with his brill cream and straight-on kicking style could nail a 55 yarder with 1 second left, in Dallas, win-the-division-or-go-home-to-smashed-TVs-throughout-the-DMV, Brett Conway could make a 52 yarder.

 

I've read about that but didn't watch that game live. 

 

As for Conway, he was 3/9 that year from 50+ so just getting the snap down still only gave us a 33% shot to win. 

[Dark Acre]

More than anything, Joe Gibbs figured out how to play offensive football in the 1980s.  Having some great players helped, but the Burgundy & Gold never had the marquee rosters some other teams had.  The 1983 Skins held the season scoring record until the 1998 Vikings came along, and the Skins were a ball-control offense.  Shanahan figured it out too, but he relied on a fragile QB to do it.  Hopefully Scott Turner has figured out how to play offense in the 2020s.  You don't need a roster full of stars.  53 men together can't lose. 

[Dark Acre]

3 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

I've read about that but didn't watch that game live. 

 

As for Conway, he was 3/9 that year from 50+ so just getting the snap down still only gave us a 33% shot to win. 

That game is on youturd.  I urge every fan to watch it.  It's sickening but there's that thing about not knowing your history.  That 1979 WFT could have gone to the SB and it could have won it.  That Team was 3rd in the NFC in points for and 4th in points against yet didn't make the paloffs because only 2 WCs and we lost the tie-breaker against Chicago by, like, 3 points after the St. Louis Cardinals (who should've been RICO'd) lost the last game of the season, against Chicago, 42-6.  Sure, teams lose 42-6 all the time, but STL was 307/358 (PF/PA) while Chicago was 306/249 -- and that was after 42-6.

 

The best thing about the game is John Riggins finding no room in the middle and bouncing it outside for a 66 yd TD while outrunning the Dallas secondary.  Jack Pardee would never have been fired if he had just fed the ball to Riggo over and over.  The guy was Jim Brown with a bigger afro.  Oh, and you think our WR core this year is poor?  The top 3 WRs in 1979 were Danny Buggs, John McDaniel, and Ricky Thompson.  I don't even know who they are and I watched them play live on TV.  Rookie Donnie Warren was our 4th-leading receiver with 25 catches -- John Riggins and Clarence Harmon were #3 and #2 respectively.  And that team had the capability of winning the Super Bowl.

[El Mexican]

Nice thread here. 

 

I watched the whole thing unfold during the 80s-90s. As an impresionable kid, these things really stay in your memory.

 

That 1993 year was terrible. Almost unwatchable with a hobbling Ryp throwing three-yard dunks for four-yard gains. Pathetic. 

By 1994 we all knew this was a downhill slope (an ex Cowboy assistant as HC? Really?).

 

Now that you bring it up, I can pinpoint the fall of the franchise to the adoption of the West Coast Offense.

I'm talking about the overpropensity of short passes and a wiff of a running game.

After the Gibbs era style of play, this was a kick in the pants to every decent Redskins fan. Completely alien.

 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

@GothSkinsFan if they make the playoffs and make a run, Pardee keeps his job and we never get Joe Gibbs. Given that it happened when I was 2 and it resulted in the 3 Super Bowls that I got to watch, I'm selfishly fine with how it unfolded! 

[kleese]

3 hours ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

We botched the snap and hold, yes. But Conway would have been expected to drill a pressure-packed 52-yard kick, so it's not exactly like it was a chippy. Also, we were only in that position to need the kick at the end because Brad Johnson did nothing all game. We scored 6 points on offense and BJ's interception in the 3rd is what woke up the Bucs. Before that, we were up 13-0 and they were sleepwalking. 

 

Edit...a little more context. That interception really was crushing. We took over about midway through the 3rd close to midfield after a DG pick and BJ just chucked a 2nd-down pass down the left sideline. That was the spark. If we even just get a first down and punt or go three-and-out and punt, they probably stay asleep all game. 

One of the dumbest/worst plays in my history as a fan. He blew that game. 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

2 minutes ago, kleese said:

One of the dumbest/worst plays in my history as a fan. He blew that game. 

 

Yep, no two ways about it. If he throws that out of bounds or takes a sack or even something positive, we likely win that game 16-3 or something. 

[kleese]

1 hour ago, GothSkinsFan said:

You clearly did not witness the Greatest Robbery of All Time:  the refs not giving us that time-out with 1 second left in Dallas, down 35-34.  EVERYBODY knew Moseley was going to drill that 55 yarder, which is why the crooked refs let time expire.  So yeah, if Moseley with his brill cream and straight-on kicking style could nail a 55 yarder with 1 second left, in Dallas, win-the-division-or-go-home-to-smashed-TVs-throughout-the-DMV, Brett Conway could make a 52 yarder.

It’s funny, Mosley was considered THE money kicker of the early to mid 80’s, but judged against today’s kicker standards he wouldn’t even be in the league. His career FG % was about 65% and he had a number of years sub 62%. As a comparison Dustin Hopkins currently sits at 85% for his career and I think most of us would term him as average to slightly above average. 
 

And by the way, Mosley career from 50+ he was 12-42. 

2 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

Yep, no two ways about it. If he throws that out of bounds or takes a sack or even something positive, we likely win that game 16-3 or something. 

Like you said, Tampa was DONE. I have no idea how that defense of ours was smothering them so, but they were. All we had to do was not mess it up. Hallmark of the Norv era though; something seemingly in hand unravels after the slightest slip. We saw that story more than once. Of course there was also the customary horrendous luck— the sack of Shaun King on third down results in a fumble, which Warrick Dunn scoops up and converts a first down. Not that I remember...

[Dark Acre]

3 minutes ago, kleese said:

It’s funny, Mosley was considered THE money kicker of the early to mid 80’s, but judged against today’s kicker standards he wouldn’t even be in the league. His career FG % was about 65% and he had a number of years sub 62%. As a comparison Dustin Hopkins currently sits at 85% for his career and I think most of us would term him as average to slightly above average. 
 

And by the way, Mosley career from 50+ he was 12-42. 

And the only kicker to ever win season MVP.  "He's the reason I flash the hardware" - Doc Walker.

[kleese]

On 9/4/2020 at 3:56 PM, hail2skins said:

I think its funny looking at the different perspectives depending on where we were in the cycle.  When Norv had us back around .500 (but with no playoffs until 1999) he was still trashed because he had immediately followed the glory years. When Jay basically had us at the same level record-wise (but did make the playoffs in 2015), many people thought he was doing a decent job because, comparatively speaking, he had followed many years of garbage. 

Difference for me was that I felt Gruden 

more or less got out of his team what was there. He didn’t get any EXTRA, but under Jay we were actually pretty good in games against teams similar or worse than us. We just never were able to elevate against better teams. I also don’t think we “blew” many games under Jay. 
 

Under Norv we just had such a hard time doing the easy stuff— like beating the Cardinals when they were awful or closing out a late lead. Norv was just always so close to breaking through and we just never could figure out how to get out of our own way.