Why the 'Skins Suck: A theory by a former die-hard and now critical fan

The return of Joe Gibbs was supposed to be the dawning of a new day for the Washington Redskins under the reign of Daniel Snyder (hereinafter "The Daniel"). One of the greatest minds in the history of professional football was returning to Washington's sidelines and, with good reason, the Redskins' fans could see hope for the first time in a long time. After all, The Daniel himself was a lifelong fan of the team, and surely, his flamboyant management of the team would bow to the genius of Gibbs. And also, Gibbs had won three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks, two of whom had otherwise horribly mediocre careers.

The light shone on Redskins Park in Ashburn, Virginia, and it seemed good. Unfortunately, within moments it became clear that The Daniel had made one fatal error in his miraculous courting of Gibbs. That error would lead to countless mistakes, all of which reaked of ultimate doom. What error? The Daniel revered Gibbs as Homer Simpson reveres donuts. Gibbs was not only given the job of head coach, but also of team president. This meant that Gibbs had free reign over all personnel decisions as well as calling the shots on the field.

In his first tenure as Redskins head coach, Gibbs was initially balanced by a brilliant general manager (Bobby Beathard). While things always looked peachy keen on the outside, it is now a fairly well-known fact that the two clashed time and time again. Gibbs would demand certain players, either via the draft, trades, or Plan-B free agency. Beathard would stand firm and battle Gibbs on each of the players, questioning whether they would truly add positive value and depth to the team. Gibbs did win on occassion, but so did Bethard, and ultimately, this meant that Gibbs had to carefully pick and choose his battles, thus requiring him to take a much harder look at each player he desired to have on his roster.

Beathard did ultimately step aside, and was replaced by Charlie Casserly, and Gibbs did win one Super Bowl in the Casserly-era. But it is clear that the effect of Beathard stayed with him in the last few years of his first tenure.

Fast forward to this second Gibbs-era. The Coach literally has nobody standing over him -- there is not one person challenging him on personnel decisions. He has full control, and thus, has no Beathard-like leash to keep him chained to the ground. But he's Joe 'friggin' Gibbs, he's a football genius, there can't be a problem! Can there? Indeed there can, and we need to look no further than Gibbs' first major decision as team president: the pursuit and acquisition of Mark Brunell.

Brunell was a 33 year-old veteran coming off an injury-plagued season. It was clear that his franchise, the Jacksonville Jaguars, had made the decision to replace him with young quarterback Byron Leftwich. However, Gibbs chose to look past the age and the injuries and the fact that Brunell's career was on a downturn. Instead, he saw a replica of arguably his favorite quarterback from his first go-around as coach: Joe Theismann. Brunell was, in his heyday, a mobile quarterback - able to scramble downfield for an easy gain of 10 yards if his receivers were covered. He was an intelligent quarterback who knew how to lead a team and had gotten some positive experience while serving as a backup to Brett Favre during Favre's good years. Gibbs loved him and overpaid for him.

Arguably, the Redskins could have used a new quarterback as incumbent starter Patrick Ramsey had suffered through weekly beatings behind a porous offensive line during his career thus far and had thus put up mediocre statistics. However, did anybody challenge Gibbs on this acquisition? Did anyone point out that two of the three Super Bowl winning quarterbacks under Gibbs were at least as immobile as Ramsey? Mark Rypien was a one-year wonder who flourished because his offensive line only gave up nine sacks all season. Rypien had time to take the snap, drop back 11 steps, down a Molson (after all, he is Canadian), deliver a loud belch, and then chuck the ball 30 yards downfield to Ricky Sanders, Gary Clark, or Hall of Fame receiver Art Monk (What? He's not in the Hall? Oh yeah, I forgot, Peter King and Dr. Z are douchebags). One would think that if Rypien could become a Pro Bowl QB, that perhaps Ramsey would at least have a good shot at being a playoff quarterback if he had a decent offensive line and coaching scheme.

But, again, nobody challenged Gibbs' thinking. Nobody stood up to him and asked "Do we really want this guy? Isn't he battered and past his prime?"

Fast forward to the 2005 NFL season. The Redskins seemingly had returned, winning 6 games in a row, including a playoff win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The offense was clicking (meaning that Portis was a beast, Moss and Cooley bailed Brunell out of passes that went beyond 10 yards, and the "dink and dunk" game caught defenses off-guard), and the team was able to bounce back from a 5-6 start in which at least three of the losses came because of boneheaded errors by Brunell. But, since the goal of making the playoffs was achieved, Brunell's mediocre play and Gibbs' free-reign were temporarily forgotten and forgiven.

One would think that if the offense was finally starting to work, that if maybe all that was needed was a formidable #2 wide receiver to take some pressure off of Santana Moss and some depth on the offensive line, that only minor changes would be made by the Gibbs regime. Unfortunately, Gibbs again went unchallenged. The acquisitions of Brandon Lloyd and Antwaan Randle-El were not horrible, though it could be argued that better options than Lloyd were available. However, the trade of a 3rd round draft choice for running back T.J. "The Refrigerator" Duckett raised my eyebrows so high that my eyelids extend to the top of my head. What's worse is that Gibbs, seeing that his offense was finally working again in the NFL and seeing that his players were finally executing it well, decided to drop it entirely and bring in the complicated, though somewhat proven, system of Al Saunders.

So let's see. System starting to work, therefore you scratch it and bring in the 300,000 page playbook of a guy that's never even made it to the Super Bowl?

Obviously, as the first seven weeks of this season have showed, the offseason thinking of Joe Gibbs has gone awry. It just makes me wonder, what if somebody, ANYBODY, had the balls to step up to him and say "Hey Joe ... do we really want to do this?" I never thought I'd say this, but I wish the old, meddling, Daniel would come back...

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