Was 1993 the Year it All Went Wrong?

[TD_washingtonredskins]

12 minutes ago, kleese said:

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...

Exactly...if I wasn't biased I would say that the 1999 NFC Divisional Game between the Redskins and Bucs worked out exactly as it should have. Norv had a winnable game slip through his fingers and Gruden won a game he had no business winning. 

 

I think we'd have lost, but it would have been fun to see how that NFC Championship Game would have gone. The September/October Redskins offense vs. the Rams would have been VERY exciting. Then again, our D tightened up and carried us in the second half of the season. 

[kleese]

2 hours ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

Exactly...if I wasn't biased I would say that the 1999 NFC Divisional Game between the Redskins and Bucs worked out exactly as it should have. Norv had a winnable game slip through his fingers and Gruden won a game he had no business winning. 

 

I think we'd have lost, but it would have been fun to see how that NFC Championship Game would have gone. The September/October Redskins offense vs. the Rams would have been VERY exciting. Then again, our D tightened up and carried us in the second half of the season. 

Dungy was still there in 1999

[TD_washingtonredskins]

10 hours ago, kleese said:

Dungy was still there in 1999

 

Oh wow, I had completely blanked on that guy!

[hail2skins]

19 hours ago, GothSkinsFan said:

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.

Didn't Riggins get stuffed on a 3rd and short prior to the Cowboys game-winning drive in the 1979 game?

 

And of course he held out the following season.

 

But I agree that, to longtime Skins fans, the 1979 loss to Dallas emotionally completely dwarfs any other one.  The Raiders butt-kicking in SB 18 was so complete that, watching that, it was tough to care after a while. 

[Darth Tater]

2 hours ago, hail2skins said:

Didn't Riggins get stuffed on a 3rd and short prior to the Cowboys game-winning drive in the 1979 game?

 

And of course he held out the following season.

 

But I agree that, to longtime Skins fans, the 1979 loss to Dallas emotionally completely dwarfs any other one.  The Raiders butt-kicking in SB 18 was so complete that, watching that, it was tough to care after a while. 

Thing about the 1979 loss is that was what would probably save Beathard.  If we go 11-5 and playoffs, along with a sweep of Dallas, Pardee probably gets a benefit of the doubt in 1980 and Beathard loses the political battle that cast a long shadow over 1980.

[Dark Acre]

5 hours ago, hail2skins said:

Didn't Riggins get stuffed on a 3rd and short prior to the Cowboys game-winning drive in the 1979 game?

 

And of course he held out the following season.

 

But I agree that, to longtime Skins fans, the 1979 loss to Dallas emotionally completely dwarfs any other one.  The Raiders butt-kicking in SB 18 was so complete that, watching that, it was tough to care after a while. 

Yeah, he did.  I liked Len Hauss, Ron Saul, et. al., but by then Saul should've dropped the Ron, he was that old.  The other things to keep in mind about this game:  1) Team had started 6-0 the year before (1978) before finishing 2-8.  Think about that.  2) Les Bullez were a good basketball team and even won the championship in '78 before losing the rematch in '79, but those games were taped-delayed (think about *that*) and, well, short shorts.  Besides that, the Capitals were still in the Justice Dept's witness protection program, the Orioles were for Baltimorons (and, well, I like baseball now, but baseball is to football like Hamlet is to MacBeth (7th grade boys prefer MacBeth by a greater than unanimous margin)), and there was a decent-but-forever-in-second-place-behind-the-Cosmos Diplomats team (but, eh, socker, or however you spell it)  4) Jimmy Carter was still President.  This was the "America's Team" Cowboys of the 70's, the team everyone loved to hate, it was Dallas week and that was HUGE back then, and the Skins had a very good team.  There were reports of guys throwing their TVs in anger.  On top of that, our points margin for the tie-breaker was so strong, so long as STL stayed within 30 points of Chicago, we're in despite a loss but then STL scores 6 and holds CHI to 42.  You're right about the Super Bowl too.  We're getting creamed by halftime so bad that my friends and I just went numb.

 

But for those who say that if Pardee had won, no Gibbs, nah....  I liked Jack Pardee as a person but as a head coach, a SB appearance, let alone a win, would've been a fluke and by 1981 we'd be hiring Joe Gibbs.  Remember who the majority owner of the Team was (hint:  some Cannuck named the Squire).

[Darth Tater]

The majority owner is why Jack would have stayed coach in that alternate reality.  Hell, Jack almost didn't get fired in reality and 5 games into 1981, JKC was really thinking he may have made the wrong decision.

[thebluefood]

22 minutes ago, Darth Tater said:

The majority owner is why Jack would have stayed coach in that alternate reality.  Hell, Jack almost didn't get fired in reality and 5 games into 1981, JKC was really thinking he may have made the wrong decision.

The old man was gonna fire Gibbs and rehire George Allen. Mercifully, John stepped in to stop that from happening but oh my God, can you imagine George Allen 2.0 in the early 1980s?

[TD_washingtonredskins]

16 hours ago, GothSkinsFan said:

But for those who say that if Pardee had won, no Gibbs, nah....  I liked Jack Pardee as a person but as a head coach, a SB appearance, let alone a win, would've been a fluke and by 1981 we'd be hiring Joe Gibbs.  Remember who the majority owner of the Team was (hint:  some Cannuck named the Squire).

 

There is no way Cooke would have fired a coach who had just taken the team to the Super Bowl. Why would he? That would completely change the narrative and reasoning for firing Pardee to begin with!

[BringMetheHeadofBruceAllen]

16 hours ago, thebluefood said:

The old man was gonna fire Gibbs and rehire George Allen. Mercifully, John stepped in to stop that from happening but oh my God, can you imagine George Allen 2.0 in the early 1980s?

 

Allen may not have been so bad. He went to the USFL and had 2 playoff berths and one championship game berth in two seasons, going 24-16 during that 83-84 span. But the fact that the Rams fired him in the PRESEASON was not a good indicator...

[Dark Acre]

2 hours ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

There is no way Cooke would have fired a coach who had just taken the team to the Super Bowl. Why would he? That would completely change the narrative and reasoning for firing Pardee to begin with!

By 1981, Pardee's O would have cratered.  Where do you think Callahan got his run-first philosophy?  (And his run-second, and his run-third)  Pardee couldn't spell pass if you spotted him the *ss.  Everyone talks about modern, wide-open football these days, but it all began in the early 80's when blocking rules were liberalized and mugging was eliminated as a pass defense technique.  Cooke would have pitched a fit over Pardee's failure to adapt.  If there's one thing Cooke was good at was adapting.  Wasn't his last wife 40 years younger than him?

[TD_washingtonredskins]

1 hour ago, GothSkinsFan said:

By 1981, Pardee's O would have cratered.  Where do you think Callahan got his run-first philosophy?  (And his run-second, and his run-third)  Pardee couldn't spell pass if you spotted him the *ss.  Everyone talks about modern, wide-open football these days, but it all began in the early 80's when blocking rules were liberalized and mugging was eliminated as a pass defense technique.  Cooke would have pitched a fit over Pardee's failure to adapt.  If there's one thing Cooke was good at was adapting.  Wasn't his last wife 40 years younger than him?

That's all fine and dandy, but you're still overlooking a couple things...

 

1) Winning a title brings with it a lot of equity 

2) Gibbs went from Air Coryell to Pardee's approach in 1981 and that contributed to the eventual Super Bowl in 1982

[thebluefood]

Bumping this because some fabulous soul uploaded (in 3 parts) the the 1993 season open at RFK. This seems to be that last glimmer of hope before everything totally went down the tubes, where they have remained for nearly 30 years. 

 

[NoVaSkins21]

'93 was a rough year given that they were basically rebuilding, but every year from '93 to '98 was rough since there were no core players and the ownership status was in limbo for a while.  1999 showed promise with the roster they had assembled, but by then, Snyder was also in the picture and then they went all-in in 2000 with the big name signings and things were never the same after that.

[hail2skins]

When Snyder took over as owner, it was reported that he wanted to rescind the trade Casserly made to bring Brad Johnson here after Trent Green had departed to STL.

 

Has it ever been reported or speculated who Snyder actually wanted as QB? Yes, we eventually brought Jeff George here in 2000, but that was only after he had a solid 1999 in Minnesota after Cunningham got benched, but was available because Daunte Culpepper was the heir apparent for the Vikes. 

Edited September 17, 2022 by hail2skins

[profusion]

On 9/16/2022 at 11:11 PM, thebluefood said:

Bumping this because some fabulous soul uploaded (in 3 parts) the the 1993 season open at RFK. This seems to be that last glimmer of hope before everything totally went down the tubes, where they have remained for nearly 30 years. 

 

 

I had just moved to the DC area a few weeks before this (despite being a lifelong Redskins fan), and watched this game from a local bar. Man, it seemed for that brief moment that the good times would never end and that I'd finally get to enjoy them close up. Ahh, that's life...

[Cooleyfan1993]

My parents ask themselves that all the time  

[Renegade7]

On 8/30/2020 at 1:32 AM, Riggo-toni said:

JKC was the ONLY owner who voted against the salary cap. We had the most bloated payroll in the league, and by a significant margin. Our payroll was iirc reportedly 40% over the determined cap limit.

Gibbs did not leave the franchise in good shape, having traded away 2 firsts for Desmond Howard, a 1st and a 3rd for an over the hill Gerald Riggs, traded away the next franchise QB Stan Humphries to Beathard for a draft pick on a punter who was cut in camp.

The Hogs were gone, and Rypien was exposed without a superb OL and no Gary Clark. Most of all, OC Rod Dowhower was putrid. The decision was made to abandon air Coryell for a WCO, but other than an aging Art Monk, we didn't have the WRs for it, and even on his best days Rypien's short passing game was lamentable.

Finally, we had a slew of injuries. Petition was a defensive genius, but even he could not make much of the personnel still standing.

My biggest regret is that at the end of the year we didn't fire Casserly instead of Petitbon. He was the main architect of that disaster and his decade of bad drafts and mostly lousy FA signings would prove he was not GM material.

 

See...this is why I don't agree 1993 was the "beginning of the end" for this franchise...

 

I was 3-4 when Gibbs I ended, so I have Gibbs II more so for reference, even if it was wildly different in so many ways (like having a salary cap).

 

One of the biggest similarities is it didn't feel at all like the franchise Gibbs II left was setup for success without him.  Our best player was dead, Jason Campbell was starting to look like a bust, and the owner didn't even want Greg Williams to take over despite him being obviously better then Zorn.

 

In that context, despite us winning so much in the 80s, I'm curious when it was apparent that Gibbs and Co. were stealing from the future to give its present its best shot.  Hard to argue it wasn't worth it (Gibbs II is also only regime to win us a playoff game this century as well), but he left us with practically nothing once he left not once but twice.

 

Joe Gibbs is like the LeBron James of the NFL, look how long it took any franchise they left to recover back to that same level (if it ever did).

[philibusters]

Joe Gibbs first tenure, which last 12 seasons 1981-1992, was so successful, we were the premier franchise in football.   No losing seasons during those 12 seasons, one 8-8 season, 11 winning seasons including a pair of 14-2 seasons, a pair of 12-4 seasons, an 8-1 season during a strike shorten season and three Super Bowls.  I think it was natural to try to extend that run.  I think when they were extending it by getting older veterans it probably wasn't understood how free agency and the salary cap would affect a future rebuild.  I was born in 1983 and started following the team in 1990 season but I was too young to really follow the draft and what not.  I remember them talking on telecasts about the coming of free agency, but I didn't have any nuanced understanding of whether it would help or hurt Washington.  So its hard for me to say when it became apparent.  That said if the rules had not changed, I imagine Washington would have continued to have one of the highest payrolls and may have been able to avoid a  rebuild by continuing to bring in older veterans to replace the veterans that were leaving.

[thebluefood]

I'd love to read a book about this team's downfall with the Monday Night Football game on Opening Day 1993 serving as a prologue. It just feels like this franchise has been beset by a uniquely baffling series of bad lucky and worse leadership and it is truly fascinating to see how unyielding its mediocrity (at best) has been over the years, including multiple owners.

[Alexa]

Really the second that Dan Snyder legally took control of the team, I guess sometime before training camp in 1999 is when the real decline started. Had John Kent Cooke been able to keep the team at least we would have been a respectable franchise. There wouldn't have been Steve Spurrier or Jim Zorn or Jay Gruden, and certainly not Bruce Allen or Vinny. 

[FLSkinz83]

People seem to forget the franchise was going downhill years before Snyder.     

 

Gibbs and Beathard is what made this franchise great...not JKC...After Gibbs retired, We were left with terrible personnel decisions, terrible drafting and FedEx Field.  

 

And it continues 23 years later......

[hail2skins]

1 hour ago, FLSkinz83 said:

 23 years later......

That is the relevant part.  Its true that the Skins were bad in the six seasons before Snyder took over, but Dan has been owner for a period nearly four times as long as that by now. The 1993-1998 period has zero bearing on the trainwreck this organization has been for the past 20 years.  

[CobraCommander]

November 23rd, 1964

[hail2skins]

6 minutes ago, CobraCommander said:

November 23rd, 1964

I'm assuming that's when the current owner was born 😀