Four Years Later: Are We Better Off?

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by irish

Sure this team has made the playoffs but in reality this team has won nothing since Gibbs returned and I'm sure had we taken a poll 4 years ago today predicting the next 4 years and I predicted 2 playoff appearances but no playoff wins I would have been skewered. Unfortunately that has been what happened. It always looks like this team is getting better but they never really do.

I disagree. After the final game of the Spurrier regime, and Spurrier's resignation (remember, he quit on the Redskins, not vice versa. In fact, as I recall, Snyder tried to convince him to stay), this team did not look like it was getting better and, in fact, I would say it was looking into the future with despair.

Who could we get to coach? How would restore respectability? How could we avoid being consistent cellar-dwellers given the state of our cap and the apparent age of our roster?

I don't know how you felt at the time, but I felt pretty hopeless.

Gibbs brought immediate credibility and immediate hope. Unfortunately, the hope was overblown but, again IMO, the credibility was not. Four years of continuity in management and message has made a difference. Read the players post season comments. This is a team that expects to win AND has shown the capability to do so. Compare these to the 2003/2004 pre-Gibbs offseason.

Before you can be consistent, you may have to be sporadic. Right now, over four years we have had two losers and two winners. If we can put another winning season together next year (which I anticipate - not a perfect season, but a winning one), three of four seasons will be winners and the culture of consistent winning can be re-established.

I think the 2003/2004 offseason was the pits and the years of mismanagement and infighting had come home to roost. Again, Gibbs has changed the way the team and, importantly, its non-player employees look at the time.

Does it have flaws, of course. Are we on a downward spiral? No. Can we legitimately hope to win even if our talent level is not top-notch, or the injury bug strikes? Yup.

More importantly, do the players believe they can win even if our talent level is not top-notch, or the injury bug strikes? Again, I think that this season gives that a resounding yes.

Further, unlike the euphoria of post-2005, when the team thought all it had to do was show up to win, this team seems to realize that it takes a team working hard ALL the time to win.

The culture of winning, so thoroughly destroyed by Spurrier/Cerrato/Snyder troika, is returning and coming to fruition under Gibbs.

This team will play hard for Gibbs and, in doing so, will win for him.