Coaching Confidential: Inside the Fraternity of NFL Coaches by Gary Myers Read Free Book Online

It wasn’t the first time Snyder had tried to persuade Gibbs to come home and save the Redskins. Now he was going to get his chance, and even after being out of football for the last eleven seasons, he was a better choice than Jim Fassel, Dennis Green, and Ray Rhodes, the other candidates interviewed. Gibbs brought instant credibility.
    The money was great, and Gibbs hired his son Coy to be on his staff. Coy wanted to get into coaching, and this gave Gibbs a chance to ease his son into the business and keep his family close to him. But he also was putting his reputation on the line by giving this another shot. He was already in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Anything short of a fourth Super Bowl title to go with the three Vince Lombardi Trophies that were sitting in the lobby at Redskins Park would be a disappointment.
    “There is no net,” Gibbs said. “I am hanging. There is nothing down there to catch us. That may be the biggest thrill. Knowing how hard it is and to get the chance to do something super-hard. It’s probably going to be one of the toughest deals you can imagine.”
    At his introductory news conference on January 8, 2004, many of Gibbs’s former players came by to lend their support, including Darrell Green, Art Monk, and Gary Clark. Gibbs spoke for forty-five minutes without naming one current Redskins player. He hada lot of catching up to do. But he didn’t become one of the all-time best coaches in NFL history by cutting corners. He would put in the hours, Snyder would spend the money, and pretty soon the fans would be singing “Hail to the Redskins” and really mean it.
    Gibbs had a formidable challenge. He had been gone from the league since 1992, and a lot had changed in the way the NFL conducted business. It was a different game. There was free agency and the salary cap. It was the new world of NFL finances and player movement. The Redskins were a dominant team in the twelve seasons Gibbs coached them in Act 1—they made the Super Bowl four times and won three of those games. But now he was inheriting a team that had made the playoffs just once in the little more than a decade during which he was gone.
    The good news was that the Redskins were bad enough in 2003 that Gibbs inherited the fifth pick in a draft loaded with talented players. Mississippi quarterback Eli Manning went first to the Chargers, Iowa offensive tackle Robert Gallery second to the Raiders, Pittsburgh wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald third to the Cardinals, and North Carolina State quarterback Philip Rivers fourth to the Giants. The Giants immediately traded Rivers to the Chargers along with picks in the first, third, and fifth rounds for Manning, a daring move that paid off with two Super Bowl titles in Manning’s first eight seasons.
    The three best players left on the draft board when it came time for Paul Tagliabue to announce the Redskins’ pick were quarterback Ben Roethlisberger from Miami of Ohio and safety Sean Taylor and tight end Kellen Winslow from the University of Miami. The Redskins had selected quarterback Patrick Ramsey with their first-round choice in 2002. He was a developing player. That ruled out Roethlisberger, which became a mistake when Ramsey turned out to be a dud and Big Ben won two Super Bowls in his first five seasons. The Redskins gave strong consideration to Taylor and Winslow. They selected Taylor, a phenomenal athlete, perhaps the next Ronnie Lott. Safeties are a low-priority positionand usually do not get taken very high in the draft. Lott was the overall eighth pick by the 49ers in 1981, and he began his career at cornerback, a more valued position. But he made the Hall of Fame because he was one of the greatest safeties to ever play the game.
    The Redskins spent a lot of time in Miami with Taylor before the draft and felt confident that he was going to be a big-time player for them. They decided he was their guy. But once they selected him, he was difficult for Gibbs to read. “He was