Responsibility lies with an all-star coaching staff

Joe Gibbs is concerned, and the immediate reaction is to scoff and chalk it up to typical Gibbs melodrama. Preseason performances, in years past, seem to indicate little about how a Gibbs team will play when games count.

But Gibbs wouldn’t lie to us, right? So if he says he is concerned, then maybe there is reason to be concerned.

“I thought we would get a great effort and play extremely hard at home,” Gibbs said after the Redskins’ 27-14 loss Saturday night to the New York Jets.

“We have a long ways to go, and it’s a sobering fact for all of us,” he said. “The only way I know how to fix it is to come back and go to work. We have two games left before starting the regular season, and that has us very concerned.”

They didn’t get great effort? Where’s the effort, coach? You mean among all those coaches that Dan Snyder hired there’s not one in charge of effort?

Go out and hire an effort coach now. Is Anthony Robbins doing anything? Get Zig Ziglar on the phone.

When fingers start pointing at effort and how much was exerted, the fingers generally point at players and rightfully so. Conventional wisdom is that there is only so much coaches can do and at some point the players have to play.

But what happens when the coaches are the stars of the team? What happens when you assemble an All-Star coaching staff and there is still no effort? Who is responsible then?

When you have 18 coaches on your staff — and that doesn’t include the three strength coaches — making a total of about $20 million a year, then someone has to say, “Well, if there wasn’t a great effort, then maybe these highly-paid coaches have to ’coach them up’ a little better.”

NFL coaching has risen to a new level with the staff Gibbs has assembled this year, bringing in offensive guru Al Saunders (named associate head coach-offense) to run a new high-powered attack. He joins Gregg Williams, the defensive czar (with the title of assistant head coach-defense). Both serve as head coaches of their units, with Gibbs acting sort of like a chief operating officer.

It is certainly new for Gibbs to hand off the offensive reins to someone else, and everyone is watching to see how he can handle his bigger-picture role. Maybe he really is concerned because this is new territory for him — if indeed he has handed the ball off to Saunders.

All eyes this season will not just be on Gibbs but on this star-studded coaching staff Snyder has put together. The Redskins owner, who had been rightfully criticized over his early years of ownership for one coaching debacle after another, also has been rightfully praised for sparing no expense in beating the salary cap by spending lavishly in an area of the field the cap doesn’t cover — the sideline.

Among that coaching staff, there is Joe Bugel, the assistant head coach of the offense; Don Breaux, the offensive coordinator; Greg Blache, the defensive coordinator and defensive line coach; Dale Lindsey, the linebackers coach; and Jerry Gray, the secondary coach. These are the stars of the Washington Redskins.

Sure, there is Mark Brunell and Clinton Portis and Sean Taylor, but let’s face it, none of them has star power. Look at the rest of the NFC East. The Cowboys have T.O. The Eagles have Donovan McNabb. The Giants have Jeremy Shockey and a budding star, quarterback Eli Manning. Last season the Redskins’ biggest star was LaVar Arrington — the Paris Hilton of linebackers.

So when it is time for someone to step up and take care of this thing called effort in Washington, the coaches, perhaps more than any place in the rest of the league, have to bear more of that responsibility. More is expected of them.

This is nothing new for Gibbs. He is more than willing to stand up there and say, “Blame me, blame me.”

He does so after most losses, and he did so after Saturday night’s defeat.

“We need to take a serious, hard look at all of this, and I know I have to from my standpoint. I’m sure I haven’t done my job,” Gibbs said.

We have heard this before and knew in the past that much of it was just taking the heat for the players. Now, though, the heat may indeed be on the sideline.