So will Joe Gibbs succeed?

Along with all the other Redskins fans here in the nations capital, I’m practically giddy today. But there’s a little nagging fear in the back of my mind. Can he do it again? No he doesn’t need to win 3 more SuperBowls to be considered a success. He just needs to re-establish a winning tradition here. He basically needs to achieve what it took Lombardi one year to do back in ‘68 or ‘69 when he came to DC. I just hope that Gibbs doesn’t pay the same price Vince did.

Has the NFL passed Gibbs by? No way. Randy Cross the annoying Fox or CBS guy who played for the 49ers made the point on ESPN this morning that many offenses in the NFL today are running variations on themes Joe Gibbs created while in Washington. His X’s and O’s are still current. So on that page, I have no doubts he can do it. Can he manage today’s players? Several sports reporters have made the comment that the more relevant question is can today’s players handle Gibbs. Maybe that’s an issue. The real question to me is that does Gibbs still have the drive to achieve the level of excellence that he maintained throughout his first stint. God I hope so.

Those football pundits who say that Snyder is too evil for Gibbs to deal with, or that the situation at Redskins Park it too much of a mess can go stick their pens up their collective ass. Snyder hating is in vogue at ESPN and CBS and in the national media. Ultimately Snyder really wants to win. If Gibbs can deliver, Snyder won’t have a problem letting him deliver. And Gibbs could manage the Squire, Jack Kent Cooke, I think Gibbs can handle The Danny.

Ultimately, I think Gibbs can coach the Skins back to respectability and beyond. I think as a coach, his second tenure will be respectable. I don’t know if it’ll result in a championship. I think the true metric of a successful second tenure will be what happens when he leaves. If he steps down from coaching on a positive note, retains control of the team, and picks a competant successor, then I think he will have achieved a masterstroke, and that’s what I’m hoping for.

I just want Sundays in DC to be fun again. I want to erase the memories of Deion, Marty, the OBC, Big Daddy, Michael Westbrook, Heath Schuler, Gus Ferotte, and all the has beens and never was’s who have passed through here.

Hail to the Redskins