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Need To Know Why Doug Williams In Timmy Smith Left Football In 1989


johndevivi

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Timmy Smith was in the NFL with the Cowboys until being released after the 1990 season. He had off the field issues with drugs that augured his release from the Redskins.

Williams had chronic knee problems and at 34 walked with a distinct limp.

I saw him work through a horrible outing in 1988 against the Oilers where the Skins were clobbered 41-17 and Doug had just lost the magic.

Let's remember that Williams had not played regularly in the NFL since 1984 and that run in 1987 ended up being the high water mark of his NFL career.

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Timmiie Smith didn't play all year and got to play in the SB because of injuries. The combination of the Skin's incredible blocking and a very bad Denver defense allow Smith to run for record yards. The next year he proved to not be good enough to even make the team. Part of the problem seemed to be the psychological factor of having done so well in the SB and then having to compete to make the team.

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Smith was on the team and started the 1988 season pretty well, as I recall, but his production waned shortly thereafter.

Williams was a great backup QB. He did very well coming off of the bench, just not as a starter. Too streaky. If you remember, he was a backup to Schroeder through much of the 1987 season. Midway through the season, he got the job because of Schroeder struggling, but got injured and Schroeder led the team to a comeback victory over the Giants to get the job back. Gibbs wanted Schroeder to have the job, but another poor outing against Minnesota in the last game of the regular season got him planted on the bench. Williams came on and won that game and was named the starter for the playoffs. Again, more streakiness from him. The team responded well to him, which was the biggest factor in his favor. He was a real stand-up guy. But, he didn't do very well in the playoffs. He had a good quarter against Chicago, a game which Green won with his famous punt return. A fairly poor outing against the Vikings in the NFC Championship game, but the team still pulled it out. And, the second quarter in the Super Bowl, a game where he didn't get going until he got hurt, and, yep, came in off the bench.

He just didn't have the consistency to be a starter. But, he could spark the team from the bench. He was the QB for the Skins in that '89 game where the Cowboys beat them 13-3 for their sole victory of the season. He put up many games like that as a starter. I don't think they ever wanted Williams to have the starting job, but they couldn't give it back to Schroeder after the Super Bowl, and it was clear that Williams and Schroeder couldn't co-exist. So, they had to ride it out with Williams until they could get someone else.

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and a very bad Denver defense allow Smith to run for record yards

Actually their defense wasn't that bad. but it was VERY undersized. The hogs could easily manhandle them.

Not to mention, give Gibbs and his staff two weeks, and they'd find any and every weakness in the opponents D. And how to exploit it.

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Timmy Smith

| Rushing

+----------+-----+--------------------------+

| Year TM | G | Att Yards Y/A TD

+----------+-----+--------------------------+-

| 1987 was | 7 | 29 26 4.3 0

| 1988 was | 14 | 155 470 3.0 3

| 1990 dal | 1 | 6 6 1.0 0

+----------+-----+--------------------------+

| TOTAL | 22 | 190 602 3.2 3

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Timmy Smith had some carries though not many in the regular season. From what I remember the problem was that George Rogers hit the wall (much like Eddie George) in '87 and by December had gone from mediocre but acceptable w/Kelvin Bryant taking handoffs, to complete and utter cr@p by playoff time.

Examples:

In opening Divisional game against Chicago:

Timmy Smith: 16-66-0 and no catches

George Rogers: 6-13-1 and 1-11

Kelvin Bryant: 3-8-0 and no catches

Against Vikes in NFC title game:

Timmy Smith: 13-72-0 and no catches

George Rogers: 12-49 and no catches

Kelvin Bryant: 3-3 and 4 catches for 47 yards and a TD

It was only in the Super Bowl that Smith clearly got the lions share of the carries and even then it wasn't a huge majority:

Timmy Smith: 22-204-2 and 1 for 9

George Rogers: 5-17 and no catches

Kelvin Bryant: 8-38 and 1-20

By playoff time Smith was getting the majority of the carries but not by much (51 in the playoffs, to Rogers 23 and Bryants 14), essentially Bryant was the third down back/change of pace back w/plenty of blocking skills (Keith Griffin was also a useful tool in that capacity as was another guy).

Anyway the team drafted Jaime Morris for insurance knowing that Bryant didn't fit their idea as a starter and Smith wasn't experienced enough to be reliable and it was a disaster. Probably the two biggest reasons for '88 failure were age and drugs on defense, injuries and inconsistency at QB and an inept running game, w/Smith an abject disaster (interestingly I agree w/the poster that suggests Smith started well, I think he did as well, I think he had a pretty good first week or two and then collapsed). Morris had one of the funniest games ever against the Bengals in the season finale, a game the Redskins should have won ten times over, but did not. Morris gained something like 140 yards, but he did it on something like 47 carries, which was amusing considering his small stature, and the putrid supply of yards he gained on so many bloody carries.

As for Williams, his main problem was his prime years were spent w/the Bucs and in the USFL after a labor dispute, as well as the death of his wife during a horrible contract fight with Tampa Bay. Up until the rise of the Sapp lead Bucs, Doug Williams was the only QB to ever Quarterback the Bucs to a playoff victory (in 1979 he helped lead the Bucs to a 24-17 victory over the Eagles, and a trip to the NFC title game, a yawn fest which the rams won 9-0 after previously beating the cowboys with a late deep td pass the previous week). His stats aren't amazing, but remember, the only success the Bucs ever had was w/him at the helm up until 1996 when Sapp's arrival began to herald changes.

As for what happened w/him, as others have mentioned, he had a bunch of problems the rest of the way (appendicitus?), back issues, and of course the age old consistency problems. He wasn't a long term solution. We were trapped essentially and it's amazing how successful we were from '86-'92 considering that we never had a consistently reliable QB during that span, Schreoder collapsed after an early successful 24 game opening to his career, Williams was great one week, crap the next (and as another poster mentioned, his numbers against the Bears and Vikes were awful, the only thing he did do well was minimize mistakes), and Rypien was a comedy fest week to week (one time litterally fumbling a ball up the back of his jersey while running for a first down (well his version of running), you never knew whether he'd blow up for 300 yards, or misfire every other play (supposedly Rice asked Clark, "How the hell did you win 10 games w/this guy?" while at the '89 Pro Bowl.). So in retrospect, it's pretty astounding that during this time period in the post-theismann era, Gibbs teams went 82-39 w/very limited consistency at best at QB from season to season and from game to game much of the time.

The ugly truth is, if you gave the Posse Montana or Young instead of Rypien and Williams, Clark and Monk would probably each have an additional 40-60 receptions. One thing you never saw Rice do was dive for overthrown footballs, you certainly can't say that of Monk, Sanders and Clark whom could be seen covered w/grass stains from game to game not just from being tackled, but from laying out for errant Rypien and Williams and Schreoder passes.

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