[Rock Your Face]

Let me first apologize for any hard feelings I might cause on the part of SBXVII, because he does strike me as a rational and devoted Skins fan and I think for the most part he makes very good points. That being said, to say that the Skins under Gibbs 1.0 played down to the level of their competition is absurd. As evidence I point to the '91 Skins' first 3 home games: Skins 45 - Lions 0; Skins 34 - Cardinals 0; Skins 23 - Iggles 0. The only 2 losses that year were the admittedly horrendous home loss to the Cowgirls that dropped the Skins to 11-1 and the last game of the season at the Vet that didn't matter.

That era of the NFL was geared toward domination, witness the 49ers and Skins of the '80s and the Cowgirls of the '90's. Now the NFL is designed for parity. The Patriots are the one exception, and this year they caught lightening in a bottle: Moss was acquired on the cheap because he basically tanked it as a Raider and the Dolphins were morons in giving Welker (please note that the Fish went 1-15 this year as further proof of their idiocy). Basically, in the NFL today, if you do not have a dominant QB and a great front office, i.e., the Colts and the Patriots, you are confined to being mediocre to good each and every year. That is the way the system is designed to work.

In light of the way the current NFL is designed, and does work, 2 playoff appearances in 3 years is doing very well. Let me remind every one that prior to Gibbs 2.0, the Skins had made the playoffs once since Gibbs 1.0 and that was in a year when Snyder had just purchased the team (May '99) and had not had the time to put his imprint on it. After the 1999 season, the Skins had failed to make the playoffs in any year that Snyder owned the team prior to Gibbs 2.0.

My point in all of this is simple. Snyder was given, in my opinion, one of the easiest head coaching decisions of all time: Hire Gregg Williams and continue the continuity that was built in the last 4 years. As someone smarter than me once said: "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." As I see it, the Skins are just going back to what they had done under Snyder prior to Gibbs returning.

What was so wrong with hiring Williams? If things did not work out, and the last 4 games of this year were a fluke, they could have moved on after 1 year under Williams, made a move for Cowher and blown the whole thing up. Instead, the Skins have hired an OC without a head coach and made themselves once again the laughingstock of the entire league. Someone previously suggested that Snyder had an ace up his sleeve in trying to hire Belichick. I hope, but seriously doubt, that they are right.