PALM BEACH, Fla. — He was humble and thoughtful, funny and perceptive. It was a vintage Joe Gibbs performance — one that made it appear as if he had been attending the annual grilling by the media at the NFL spring meetings for the last 11 years instead of running an auto racing empire.
The 63-year-old Hall of Fame coach skipped the breakfast buffet, grabbing only a cup of coffee during yesterday’s hour-long discussion about his stunning return, working for hard-driving owners Jack Kent Cooke and Dan Snyder, how the game has changed and his attempted reshaping of the Washington Redskins.
“Five months ago, I would have said you were crazy [if you had told me I would be coaching again],” Gibbs said. “My life was all settled, all programmed until they carried me off the back porch of my house. It wasn’t any one thing [that brought him back]. It was a process. … I kept praying for doors to close, and they kept opening.”
Gibbs, who returned to the Redskins on Jan.8, isn’t under any illusions about the challenge of rebuilding a team that went 5-11 last year and has made the playoffs once since his shocking retirement from exhaustion on March5, 1993.
“My expectations are that we play our rear ends off, [but] we were 5-11 last year,” Gibbs said. “People have to be realistic. We’re playing in a super-tough division. That worries you as much as anything.”
The NFC East includes the three-time division champion Philadelphia Eagles, who have helped themselves with the acquisitions of receiver Terrell Owens and defensive end Jevon Kearse, and the 2003 wild card Dallas Cowboys, coached by Gibbs’ longtime New York Giants antagonist, Bill Parcells, against whom he went 6-11 compared to 134-54 against everyone else.
Gibbs received a welcome-back e-mail from Parcells that read, “Does this mean we can’t talk for the next five years?” The two, opposites in personality and in football strengths, have never been friendly. Techno-phobe Gibbs didn’t even reply, figuring he would see Parcells here, but the Cowboys’ coach didn’t show.
Asked if he could have ever gone to work for the hated Cowboys as Parcells has, Gibbs replied, “I could never do that. I see blue, I get sick.”
Unlike many Redskins employees who soon grew sick of Cooke or Snyder, Gibbs had nothing but praise for each, although with a bit of general trepidation about the demands he faces in his once-and-again career move.
“Mr. Cooke was a great owner,” Gibbs said. “He would say, ’This is what I think you need to do, but you need to do it your way.’ Dan has a burning desire to win. That franchise means a lot to him. A lot of it is relationships, how you get along with the owner. Sometimes that all sours. If someone gets in a mess, they want it fixed in a year. You can’t do that. … So, as a consequence you have a lot of [coaching] turnover. It’s a real tough deal. But you get paid a lot of money. It’s high-risk, high-reward.”
The reward for Gibbs goes beyond the three Super Bowl titles, the Hall of Fame bust and the five-year, $28million contract. He believes he can still forge the family feeling that characterized his Redskins from 1981 to 1992 even in today’s constantly churning NFL.
“Human nature pretty much stays the same,” Gibbs said. “You’re battling the same things: individuality, focus on myself. Can you focus on the team? Can you sacrifice for the betterment of the team? Everyone says you’ve got to revamp your team every two years, but I don’t agree. I looked at it long and hard. I see our [salary cap] numbers. If we find a good Redskin, we’re going to try to keep him.”
The Redskins are trying to better themselves through a three-year plan. Gibbs said he, player personnel director Vinny Cerrato, the three pro scouts and the relevant assistant coaches evaluate each prospective free agent and combine their judgments into a grade. The process is generally the same with the draft, but as for who will be on the team, Gibbs said, “the final cuts always go to the coach.”
That, of course, is not what happened with predecessor Steve Spurrier, who was overruled by Snyder and Cerrato last year when he wanted to keep quarterback Danny Wuerffel.
As for current passers Mark Brunell and Patrick Ramsey, Gibbs promised a “wide-open” competition this summer despite the 33-year-old Brunell’s $8.6million signing bonus after being acquired from Jacksonville last month and the 24-year-old Ramsey’s limited experience compared to his rival’s eight years and two AFC Championship games as a starter.
“I’m coaching the team,” Gibbs said. “I’m going to get run out of here if we don’t win. Am I going to start somebody because he makes a lot of money? I’m going to start the best guy who gives me the best chance to keep from getting booed.”
Gibbs, who made his reputation as an offensive mastermind, is scared that will happen to him if he doesn’t adjust to today’s more aggressive defenses.
“People are much more aggressive on defense than they were,” said Gibbs, who began his assessment of today’s NFL by examining the five best rushing teams and the five best passing teams. “That scares you to death because there’s a chance that you don’t make a yard. [But] the biggest change is how you acquire talent. It used to be if I did a good job of convincing Mr. Cooke that we needed something, we could go get it. Today everybody has a set amount of money to spend. It’s just a matter of how you want to spend it.”
Gibbs, infamous for all-nighters during his last go-round, said he won’t be sleeping in the office this time, partly in deference to his wife, Pat, and partly because he is doing a much better job of watching his health since he learned that he was diabetic. But the coach isn’t planning on changing much else.
“It was good having the first minicamp [last weekend] to go through it all again,” Gibbs said. “It was a little bit like having amnesia. Every now and then something flashes and you go, ’This is what we did!’ I’ve added some things that I think are going to be neat. I’ve got [former NFL offensive coordinator] Ernie Zampese working off the field, not on the field. I’ve got [ex-running backs coach] Don Breaux freed up from position coaching to work on some advance stuff with Ernie. But in general, we’ll try to do it the same way. We kind of evolved into a way of doing it that we thought was good.”
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