You can reach Rich Tandler by email at WarpathInsiders@comcast.net
Normally, one would say ho, hum. Another article ripping the
Redskins for being an organization is disarray. Wake me up when they get past the
part about Dan Snyder being a megalomaniac and fantasy football owner. Most
such articles never do.
This one,
however, merits close examination. This article is not from one of your typical
foaming at the mouth, Snyder hating, Art Monk dissing, card carrying Redskins
bashers. It’s by Tom Friend, currently with ESPN and formerly with the
Washington Post. He was the Post’s Redskins beat writer for much of the team’s
glory years under Gibbs. What he has written about the Redskins in the past has
been mostly fair and has stayed away from the conventional myths that surround
the team (i. e. Snyder as fantasy GM). For a national writer he seems to be
pretty knowledgeable about the team. So, when Friend writes an article that
takes Joe Gibbs to task and rips one of his assistant head coaches and beats up
on a lower level assistant we should take a closer look.
It’s a long article, a few thousands words, and it needs to
be read in its entirety. I’m going to summarize a few things here, but you
really have to read the whole thing if what is following here is going to make
any sense.
In summary, Friend says that:
- Gregg
Williams is arrogant and mean spirited. When his defense was one of the
best in the league he could get away with being that way. Now that his
defense is statistically the worst in the NFC his style is wearing thin—to
the breaking point, in fact—with his players. He stubbornly insists on
sticking with a variation of the Cover 2 defense that has the safeties
also playing the run and the mish mash isn’t working. Instead of getting
the best of both worlds, the defense is getting the worst of it.
- Steve Jackson, who coaches the safeties, is pouting over not being promoted to
secondary coach. Williams threw him a bone and let him run meetings with
the safeties, meaning that they have been meeting separately from the
cornerbacks. This has led to communication breakdowns in the secondary,
leading in turn to busted coverages and big pass plays by opposing teams.
- Joe
Gibbs has passively watched all of this unfold, something that he never
would have done in the 1980’s. In fact, it seems to Friend as though Gibbs
has lost his fire after cranking it up for the five-game run to the
playoffs at the end of last year.
On the first read, anyone who cares about the Redskins has
got to be saying, “Holy crap,” or perhaps something much stronger. Not only is
it a scathing indictment of the team’s present state but it makes the team’s
future look rather dim as well. More upheaval on the coaching staff and player
turnover seems to be in the offing when next year rolls around. On top of that,
the whole question of “if Gibbs can’t save the franchise, who can?” seems to be
heading towards finding out who the alternatives to Gibbs are.
It’s an indictment, yes, but is there enough here to
demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that this article accurately portrays the
state of affair at Redskins Park? The thinnest aspect of the piece is that it is
built primarily on profanity-laced statements made by one defensive player who
remained anonymous. To his credit, Friend does point this out in the latter
part of the article when he lends a few paragraphs to rebuttal of what he
wrote. There is a lot of conjecture by Friend here, a lot of analysis presented
as fact.
There are some contradictions in here as well. Williams
supposedly let players like Antonio Pierce and Fred Smoot walk because the
players didn’t matter; the success of the defense was all about his schemes.
But why, then, did he push to sign Adam Archuleta and Andre Carter? And there’s
this:
Scapegoat No. 3: Rogers. He's the cornerback that was
left on an island on the go-ahead touchdown Sunday against Tampa Bay's Joey Galloway. Williams blitzed and missed, costing the team the score. Afterward,
Williams took public blame for the call, a rarity, but a Redskins player said,
"No, he didn't. In meetings, Carlos still heard about it."
So, what, Williams, behind closed doors in a meeting, was not
supposed to say anything to the player who was nowhere near the receiver who
scored the game-winning touchdown? I think that we’re reaching here.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t some truth, perhaps a lot
of truth, in what Friend wrote. While it’s unlikely that the one defensive
player who talked with him represents the view of most of the unit, there are
always players who don’t like a coach’s style or disagree with is tactics. This
player probably has company in feeling the way he feels about Williams. The way
that the defense has been performing with a supposed upgrade in personnel
certainly doesn’t speak well about Williams’ schemes.
It’s certainly possible that a turf war led to the corners
and safeties meeting separately. That’s an assertion that would be too easy for
someone to refute if it wasn’t accurate. Was Jackson pouting and not coaching
during practices and during the Tampa Bay game? What may look like pouting to
one—arms folded, distant look on the face--may actually be a state of deep
thought. We don’t know. The player may know or he might just think he knows. If
you don’t like somebody you’re usually going to have a negative take on
whatever he does.
Has Joe Gibbs been watching all of this going on, condoning
it with his silence? Or, worse, has he been totally unaware of? The third
option, of course, is that all of this is being blown out of proportion and
there’s nothing for Gibbs to correct.
Just like with all of this, I think that the truth lies somewhere
in between the confused, messy picture of an organization in disarray that
Friend paints and the ideal scenario of a tight, well-oiled machine running the
Redskins’ football operations. When you’re winning, the flaws are largely
ignored and the good traits are magnified. When you’re losing the bright spotlight
shines on all of the warts.
It’s as simple as this, really: This is the kind of stuff
that’s going to get written about you when you are falling as short of
expectations as the Washington Redskins are. When the Redskins were winning
five straight to get into the playoffs last year Gibbs was calm and
unflappable. Now they’re 3-7 and he’s detached and burned out. When I talk to
him he seems like the same guy to me. If the Redskins win three in a row,
Williams will be a hard-nosed innovator who demands the best out of his
players. Now, he’s stubborn, arrogant, and mean. Again, he’s the same guy who
has been exchanging jabs with the press every Thursday during the season for
the past three years.
Are there big problems at Redskins Park? Yes. Are they as
bad as Tom Friend and his anonymous source make them out to be? Probably not.
Rich Tandler is the
author of The Redskins From A to Z, Volume 1: The Games. This unique book
has an account of every game the Redskins played from when they moved to
Washington for the 1937 season through 2001. It makes the perfect stocking stuffer for the Redskins fans on your shopping list. For details and ordering
information go to http://www.RedskinsGames.com
