Wow! Some Great Insight into Coles' Departure

[sportscurmudgeon]

Matty:

If I piece together the chronology here, Coles and Gibbs talked about his dissatisfaction with the offense and his desire to leave. If Coles went to Snyder, then obviously, Danny had to talk to him even if only for thge courtesy of that act. HOWEVER, the conversation between Coles and Snyder OUGHT to have made it clear that Joe Gibbs makes 100% of the football decisions. Unless of course that's all a smoke screen...

So, how does Snyder allegedly throwing his weight around by telling Coles that he'll see to it that Coles is benched and not even dressed out for games make that kind of remark without inserting himself ever so rudely into the "football decisions".

My problem is that I think Gibbs - allowed to act on his own in a football sense - would have found a way to do something other than the worst outcome of all. They lose Coles; they take the biggest cap hit possible; they get a guy bqack in a trade who will want some heavy bread real soon; whatever continuity anyone wanted on offense just took a shot in the shorts. Danny Boy's tough guy act was pretty difficult for anyone to walk back from, no?


Brud Lee:

Coles and his agent are much better off the way they are now than they would have been if the team had kept Coles. So, why would they leak info to the Post that would hinder him leaving the team? The info that led to the original story made Coles' release/trade much more difficult and caused everything to slip past the 1 March date. That was not guaranteed to help Coles.

I agree with you that the leak could have come from that side of the table, but it could also have come from the other side too - - and that other side has behaved like this in the past.


To those folks who think Coles is a $9M asshole:

He'd only be a $7M asshole if Danny Boy had only paid him what he was asking for in terms of a signing bonus and not jumped the bid by an extra $3M or so... Size does matter!

[MTK]

Originally Posted by sportscurmudgeon

My problem is that I think Gibbs - allowed to act on his own in a football sense - would have found a way to do something other than the worst outcome of all. They lose Coles; they take the biggest cap hit possible; they get a guy bqack in a trade who will want some heavy bread real soon; whatever continuity anyone wanted on offense just took a shot in the shorts. Danny Boy's tough guy act was pretty difficult for anyone to walk back from, no?

Very true, but I don't think we can pin all the blame on Snyder or Gibbs for things unraveling and ultimately falling apart. From what I've read it seems like Gibbs and Coles were close to patching things up, then the WPost story leaked on Feb. 21 and that's when things went downhill quickly.

Things could have, and probably should have been handled better regardles of the story being leaked. For that I think both sides have to shoulder some blame. Snyder got emotional and threatened Coles, not a good idea. Coles then squashed the first trade attempt to NY by saying he wanted a new deal and in the process cost us the $5M bonus. That only added fuel to the fire. Sure I can understand Coles not wanting to be cooperative at that point, but two wrongs don't make a right.

I guess we'll never really know who was more right than wrong. Personally I don't think Gibbs would have set anything in stone regarding releasing Coles outright. The possibility was probably presented and Coles might have assumed they had an agreement, but I just don't see Gibbs making a big decision like that without consulting Snyder/Cerrato and exploring all avenues available.

[JWsleep]

Coles on Gibbs and the skins (kinda changing his tune for the "dictator" comments!):

Coles was asked if he was surprised that the Redskins agreed to trade him.

"No, I'm not surprised," Coles told New York reporters. "They are a very understanding organization and they are very down-to-earth people. They were very good to me in giving me an opportunity to come back to where I wanted to go.

"That shows the type of people they and what type of character Coach Gibbs has."

As usual, the heavy seems to be Danny-boy and his cursed meddling (no doubt Cerratto the monkey boy is close behind, if you know what I mean...)--I don't know: Gibbs says, if you want out, tell me and I'll move you. A guy says he wants out, and GIbbs moves him. Maybe that's a dumb football move, but it sure looked like Gibbs' move. And it's not that Danny isn't involved (as well as his toady); it's just that if Gibbs wants something, that's the way it's gonna be. He reiterated that it's a group decision process, but he has the final say. My guess is that he's a consensus bulder and that he tries to get everyone on the same page. But I don't believe for a minute that Gibbs wanted to keep Coles and Danny said no. Rather, they agreed to try and move Coles, and things got testy when the Jets trade became possible. Remember: Coles nixed it originally to squeez more money out of the Jets. That's probably when Danny had his flat-screen-TV hissy-fit: "We bend over backwards to get you a friggin trade and now you SCREW with it?!?!?!" I have some sympathy with that. But I still see Gibbs as driving the car here. (Maybe into a ditch; we'll see! Ain't life interesting?)