wow. Did not see that one coming at all.

i wouldn't promote saunders or williams oh and first

Bill Cowher?

dammit i got beat, anyway hopefully snyder took some pointers on what to look for in the next head coach and i don't have to worry about ther redskins getting a college head coach either (spurrier). they need to get somebody young with energy to coach however, gibbs, spurrier, schottenheimer were all pretty old. jim mora jr. anyone

wait, jim mora was a crazy idea, the redskins need a freaking gm first before they even hire a coach. if cowher a gm with him that would work, but no dan snyder being gm again.

that should say "if cowher brings a gm" previously

And still no link to Bob Sanders winning the Defensive MVP Award.

Yup...fair and balanced NFL coverage here folks.

FO is the FOX News of the NFL.

the most important stat is that gibbs went 4-4 against dallas in his return. i think washington had lost 14 out of 15 before that.

No god no, not Jim Mora. What a clown. Never been fond of Cowher but the guy is a hell of a coach. Just not offensive minded.

Really, Gregg Williams probably should be head coach. I do not like Al Saunders' schemes, but he should be retained for the sake of coaching continuity and to help develop Campbell.

Has ever a team been so disappointed to see a coach with a losing record leave?

"And still no link to Bob Sanders winning the Defensive MVP Award."

Yeah. And nothing for Pavel Datsyuk winning the Lady Byng either.

I thought Gregg Williams' contract stipulated he automatically replaces Gibbs whenever he retires, or something like that.

If it doesn't, I won't be shocked if Snyder offers Cowher a $100 million contract or something.

If it does, and Williams is taking over, this is a good day for Cowboys and Giants fans.

Re: #7

There was also no Extra Point for Tom Brady winning the MVP award.

re: 7, 12
or Belichick for coach of the year.

FO is the FOX News of the NFL.

I'm laughing at you, not with you.

Wow. Upon reflection, I'm not as surprised by this as I would have thought. Gibbs looked very tired to me and I think he's just had enough.

#11: Williams gets a $1 million bonus if he isn't offered the head coaching job.

What? The NFL gives out MVP awards? Why wasn't I informed of this?

Big shock. Actually Gibbs hinted at this during his press conference yesterday... talking about the team in the 3rd person. A lot of fans were shocked. He normally says something straightforward like, "I intend to fulfill my contract"... but media was pushing and he wouldn't say.

Another sad, sad day for the Redskins. I know maybe some think the game has passed him by, but he's a great coach and motivator and great person.

I hope Gregg Williams get's in, in fact I'd be shocked if he doesn't. After what the team, specifically the defense went through in 2007... I actually thought Gibbs would stay around as the coach.

I just wonder how they could get around the Rooney Rule. Is there an exception if you hire from within the organization? The Redskins are a team that needs some continuation of the staff.

Anyway, if they are looking to interview someone with the Rooney Rule I can easily see them interview DeWayne Walker and slot him into the defensive coordinator position. Not sure if he'd want to leave UCLA with Neuheisal coming in...

Over the weekend and yesterday all of the players asked by the media said they fully expected Gibbs to come back. I think they genuinely loved playing for him, and Gibbs is a players' coach.

Noooooooo!

Also, I wouldn't mind if Gregg Williams got the head coach position.

I would guess they lose Williams if he does not get the job.

Although Synder might be able to throw enough money at it to fix it.

Here's my advice.

Snyder, throw money at Scott Pioli! Please, oh please, oh please!

Ah. I just read that there is an exception to the Rooney Rule, if an assistant coach is promoted.

I fully expect Gregg Williams to be named head coach within a week then, and if not by the end of the day. I don't think Gibbs would leave without knowing who succeeds him.

Not that I really like seeing Gibbs succeeded by his defensive coordinator again... but I think GW is a bit different than Richie.

Seriously, if Snyder goes with anyone but Gregg Williams the team is going to get blown up... and there's already talk from the players that both offensive and defensive players will be upset if Gregg Williams doesn't get the job...

I just don't see how you can blow up this team after all they've gone through. True, it's a business but goodness..

I'm assuming the Dan Snyder is Tina Turner, but the real question is whether Saunders gets be to Mad Max and Williams gets to be the Blaster or vise verse?

Um... don't any of you guys remember the Gregg Williams Experience in Buffalo?

Anybody who is surprised by this clearly doesn't live in the DC metro area. This possibility has been discussed on all the local talk shows for quite some time, with a lot of people thinking that Gibbs was likely to do this. Many Skins fans were hoping he'd coach at least one more season, but with Gregg Williams' name being mentioned as a possibility for the Miami job, there may have been some consensus opinion that, if Snyder wanted Williams to take over (and a lot of Redskins want that to happen), then perhaps now would be a good time for that to happen.

I'm a Pats fan, but I've always liked Joe Gibbs. As I understand it, he'll still have some position within the organization, but I suspect he simply doesn't want to do the kind of 60+hour work week that is required of top NFL head coaches.

Suggest people look at WashingtonPost.com for more gossip. (It's the day of the NH primary, but clearly Gibbs' retirement is the top story in DC today.)

re: 22
Scott Pioli has the same kind of position that Vinny Cerrato has in DC. Cerrato isn't going anywhere, as far as I can tell.

It's hard to fault the Redskins for talent procurement just a month after their best player has been shot to death and the team still managed to make the playoffs.

#27 - Well, clearly, Joe Gibbs is the most respected leader in Washington, and has been for 25+ years.

And yeah #26, I remember the Gregg Williams "experiment" in Buffalo. He does too, and has already said that were he a head coach again, he'd relinquish control of the offense. I think he will be fine as HC, I just don't think Al Saunder's offense is well suited to complement William's defense.

OK, so he'll relinquish control of the offense, but would be relinquish control of deciding what to do on fourth down? Because the man displayed a serious fetish for punting on 4th and 2 on the opposition 38 yard line down by 10 in the fourth quarter.

By the way, I'm skeptical that Al Saunders' offense works with anybody's defense. Al Saunders got his reputation the same way Norv Turner got his: By having an offensive line so ridiculously awesome that any offensive system you run with it is going to wind up producing among the best in the league.

I was pretty hard on Gibbs regarding the timeout fiasco, but I'm really glad to see him go out with a team that made the playoffs. He did a great job from the Buffalo game on. I wish they could have stuffed it in after recovering the kickoff against the Seahawks, and gone on to win that game.

Like PhillyCWC said, I could see this coming a mile away. Dude just looks and sounds tired. Actually he sort of sounds like an elf, but you get what I mean.

After the two timeout debacle, ouch.

The biggest failing to Gibbs is that they went in to extreme turtle mode in the second half of any game they were winning. Far too conservative, and they gave up leads in most of their losses.

And I sure wouldn't be excited if Gregg Williams were taking over as head coach of my team. The guy is too arrogant. He won't be wrong ever. I remember reading a WaPo story a year ago about how they had seperate assistant coaches for the defensive backs and the safeties, and that they held seperate meetings. Then in games, the safeties would call out a defensive play and the CBs wouldn't know what play it was. That's a recipe for epic disaster.

Anyway, here's hoping whoever does become head coach decides they simply MUST have the Bruce Arians Experience running their offense, and Snyder offers him millions to leave Pittsburgh.

Re 31
But development and performance of an offensive line is partly a result of the offensive scheme and coaching as well. Hence it says something about an offensive coach if he can consistently have a good offensive line.

There's a reason why the Patriots consistently have a good o-line, and yet when members of that O-line go elsewhere (see Ashworth, Andruzzi, Compton, Tucker, etc.) they perform only slightly better than "suck". It's because the Pats have a good offensive line coach, and are good at adjusting their offensive scheme to complement the strengths and weaknesses of their line. Maybe Saunders does the same...

Incidentally, I (another Patriots fan) always liked Gibbs. I flet he was a little outdated, and felt bad that he didn't seem to be able to adjust to the modern NFL as well as he should have, but he understands football, values strong fundamentals, and is a great motivator. In short, everything that Steve Spurrier was not.

Question--my memory is hazy. Was it Gregg Williams that was responsible for the Doug Flutie-Rob Johnson fiasco in Buffalo, or was that Wade Phillips or someone else? I get all those bad Buffalo coaches mixed up...

So how long before Parcells retires from Miami to get more money as the head coach in Washington?

Wade Phillips had his own lousy stint in Buffalo, and he seems to be doing okay now that he's in a market that can actually support an NFL team...

Except that the Chiefs offensive line was so awesome primarily because of Will Shields, who was there long before Saunders, and Willie Roaf, who came over as a fully-finished free agent.

There's something fundamental about playing offense in football that Mike Martz, for example, understands and Al Saunders does not. That thing is: Generally, if you wish to move the ball up the field, the best directly to move the ball is up the field, not sideways.

I wish it was possible to track just how much the ball travels sideways in each game for each team, either via sweep/pitch runs or (more commonly) screen/hitch/short out passes. I would bet if we did have that data, only the Jets would even be within a standard deviation of the Redskins in that category.

#35, that was Wade Phillips, and #37, the Cowboys are in the middle of doing exactly the same thing Phillips' teams have always had the habit of doing: Starting out scorching, then collapsing down the stretch.

Well that would be a good thing since Fox is the least biased of anyone! ;)

35 - It was Philips. Gregg Williams had Alex Van Pelt, Rob Johnson and Drew Bledsoe as his QBs.

35

The Flutie/Johnson ordeal happened during Phillips' tenure as coach. However Flutie has stated that he didn't believe the switch was Phillips' idea, but that he was ordered from higher up to play the QB with the bigger contract.

And regardless, it's not like Rob Johnson was on kickoff coverage against the Titans.

Forget the coach, the Skins need a real GM first.

Otherwise, you'll have Bill Cowher coaching Vinny Cerrato's personnel acquired at Danny Snyder prices.

Sanders DMVP...
Why is it that when you see a picture of a defensive player, you always see him running with a ball??

As a washingtonian from the 70's until the early 90's, I never thought I'd write these words:

Goodbye, Coach Gibbs, and good riddance.

As much as I don't like comments on the "quality of humanity" of most newsworthy individuals b/c I don't think we fans/readers really have a clue, I do think it's safe to say that Gibbs is an outstanding person, who has had tremendous success in two distinct careers and yet by quite literally all accounts remains a humble, decent and inspirational leader of men.

Nonetheless, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, Gibbs 2.0 has been largely a failure. The nerve, innovation, panache and ability to adjust on the fly of Gibbs 1.0 was completely lacking for the four years of Gibbs 2.0. Long gone was the coach who called a (successful) bomb on the first play after Theismann's leg was broken, who play-called an offense that put 35 points up in one quarter in the Super Bowl, who never called another screen pass after pick six in his first super bowl, who won Super Bowls w/ QBs as diverse (and limited) in their talents as Theismann, Williams and Rypien, who used presnap motion to actually confuse the defense not confound his own offense. All that remained of the good was a Coach who still inspired loyalty in most, if not quite all, of his players, and who continually showed what it means to act with dignity, win or lose.

I say good riddance b/c, frankly, the Gibbs 2.0 skins were incredibly boring and frustrating to watch. The playcalling stunk. Things actually got a little worse w/ Al Saunders b/c it was clear that Saunders and Gibbs weren't really on the same page, and the resulting solomonic playcalling was a total disaster.

I have no idea if Gregg Williams will be a good coach the 2d time around, and neither do any of you. Certainly, if one is a "learning person" there's lots of good reason to believe that the 2d time will be much more successful. Is there evidence that he's a learning person? This year's D suggests yes.

And finally 2 quibbles:
1. Way too much is made of the double TO call. First off, the kicker made the first, overruled, kick from the original distance, so it's far from guaranteed that he would have MISSED the second time around. 2d, Coaches misunderstand the rules all the time, it just usually does not end up as an unsportsmanlike penalty. Think of all the challenge flags thrown over the last several years that resulted in the zebras having to explain to HCs that certain calls are not reviewable. Happens all the time.

2. I really can't believe I'm writing this, but as bad as the Danny and Vinny have done with some FA signings, they are far from the gawd-awful roster builders that some posters here like to think. The team was devastated by injuries this year (in another thread, I did the math and they suffered what would have been bottom quartile injuries this year on last year's injury scale -- 50% more injuries than the 2006 average), and yet they had a winning record in the toughest division in football (per FO stats) and made the playoffs. Obviously they're not loaded with young talent, but their talent doesn't appear to me to be meaningfully off the NFL average. While that's not a huge endorsement (your Average!), it also shows that they're not a disaster.

Oh, another quibble.

Obviously Spurrier stunk as an NFL head coach, but his hiring was universally lauded across the league. I think it was Ron Wolf who said he'd tried to hire him a number of times.

The Schottenheimer ordeal looks a little different w/ the benefit of the intervening years as well, as Marty wore out his welcome with another owner/GM despite his incredible success there. Will be very interesting to see if Marty gets rehired this offseason.

I hope they hire Billick.

Um… don’t any of you guys remember the Gregg Williams Experience in Buffalo?

Sure do, and I can't wait for Version 2.0!

Sincerely, the city of Philadelphia.

Jason LaCanfora of the WaPo usually has a good read from inside redskins park. He's reporting that Snyder wants Cowher.

I'd prefer some more continuity in the form of Williams and Saunders, but oh well, Snyder has to chase after another shiny toy. And unfortunately he's going to give Cowher total control, even though no Coach has won it all with that power except Jimmy Johnson, who pulled off the greatest trade heist in NFL history.

46: "as bad as the Danny and Vinny have done with some FA signings, they are far from the gawd-awful roster builders that some posters here like to think"

I don't remember seeing anyone characterize them as awful. Their free-agent signings have been hit-and-miss just as other GMs' draft choices are hit-and-miss. The difference is that rookies are cheaper and so you can draft for depth, which is one reason why injuries seem to hurt Washington more than other teams.

For the record, unless Snyder's willing to pony up a mind-blowing contract -- and I'm talking 8 years, $100 million or something -- I doubt Koach Kowher is going to be interested in joining the Washington circus. More likely he'll continue to follow his original plan, which is to work the pregame shows until the Panthers get around to firing John Fox.

Oh, and Carlos, Belichick has total control over the Patriots. Pioli is his lackey.

The Orgeron for Redskins Coach!

injuries seem to hurt Washington more than other teams.

Prove this.

Or, See the Black and Blue discussion thread where I disproved this for 2007.

And we'll have the lengthy rundown of coaches who failed at their first stop and succeeded at their second....

Re: 54

This is the first year in recent memory where injuries didn't seem to devestate the Redskins. One year does not reverse a trend.

"injuries seem to hurt Washington more than other teams."

"Prove this."

You haven't understood what I meant. I don't argue that Washington has had a disproportionate number of injuries; rather that it is forced by its personnel strategy to take desperate measures to fill gaps in the roster, most notably by signing washed-up veterans. Some of these work out - Todd Collins? - while others play like the waste of signing bonus that they are. Yes, I'm talking about you, James Thrash.

Furthermore, by trading away draft picks to sign non-washed-up free agents like Moss and Lloyd, Washington reduces its number of picks, which adds importance to each one. This is a franchise that can't afford to whiff on one first-round QB (Ramsey) let alone two (Campbell?).

This is the first year in recent memory where injuries didn’t seem to devestate the Redskins. One year does not reverse a trend.

Show me the trend in that case.

'05: made playoffs w/ a very thin team.

'06: terrible record w/ a relatively healthy (vs. league) thin team.

'07: made playoffs despite losing tons of starter games to many of their best starters and despite what appeared prior to season as little depth.

most notably by signing washed-up veterans...

Todd Collins...
James Thrash...

...non-washed-up free agents like Moss and Lloyd,

Okay, you are so wrong on the facts that I suspect I'm wasting my fingers responding to you.

Collins had the third HIGHEST DVOA of any QB. That's a great backup to have, and literally the perfect signing.

James Thrash is on the roster as one of the best special teams gunners in the NFL. He costs $1.05MM against the '07 cap. I can't find a ranking of gunners, but USA Today ranks by, e.g., WR. Thrash is the 86th most expensive WR in the NFL, behind such luminaries as Tedd Ginn and -- gasp, you mean the Pats might overpay? -- Kelley Washington. The median salary for 2007 in the NFL was $770,000. I'm not sure I see your point with Thrash.

Moss wasn't signed as a free agent. He was obtained in a trade for L. Coles. Coles costs $4MM per year. Moss costs $3.3MM per year. Total DPAR since the trade: Coles, 37.2; Moss, 52.4. Moss is also two years younger (though Coles has outproduced him the last two years).

Like I said, this is probably a waste, b/c your post is about as accurate as a typical sports radio call.

Well, I have full confidence that Dan Snyder will not be able to find a coach WORSE than Norv Turner or Steve Spurrier, so i can rest assured that our future coach will not be the worst redskins coach i have ever seen (please dont get Herm Edwards and make me incorect...please...PLEASE)

Im hoping Williams is head coach. I think he is a great defensive coordinater, and i think bringing in new head coaches always needs a huge personell change.

I called this last year. Gibbs grandkid, the contact with nascar, the criticism and the fact that the Redskins aren't going to win it all next year.

If Gibbs would come back 1 more year just to go 7-9 to 11-5 at very very best then why do it? Let's say the skins come back 9-7 next year. They might not be in cap hell as bad as people say, but they certainly wouldn't be able to signifigantly upgrade their talent. That means another average/slightly above average team and nothing to gain for Gibbs. Throw in the Nascar, the grandkid and the fact that Gibbs started out as the "savior" but now gets riddiculed by the washington media.

If they want stability they HAVE to promote Greg Williams. If Williams doesn't get the job, he probably quits and leaves anyway. He is an arrogant guy that can impress Snyder and he has the respect of his players.

If they go after Cower, then Williams is gone.

Ideally, I think Williams can do a good job if he manages the D, and he lets Saunders run the offense no holes barred. Sort of like Gruden/Kiffen in Tampa.

Saunders might want the job too, but if saunders is promted then Williams is gone. If Williams is hired then Saunders is more likely to stay around than vice versa. You also have to remember that the redskins defense is the strength of the team and not vice versa.

Oh and Gibbs was done. He was too conservative, didn't even run shotgun his first year back, and wanted to play "redskins" football while the rest of the league is passing and winning. The guy was scared of his own shaddow and coached "scared" at the end of his tenure.

If I find a prop bet online at a decent price, I am on Greg Williams.