Just last week, I wrote about the NFL Coaching Carousel and never mentioned Joe Gibbs’ name. The reason was that I did not see any way on the planet that Danny Boy Snyder would fire Joe Gibbs nor did it seem that Gibbs would resign from a team that had just made the playoffs. Even in light of the egg the Redskins laid in Seattle last weekend, I did not think that Joe Gibbs would quit. But that is just what he did today in stepping down as the President of Football Operations and Head Coach of the Washington Redskins.
Joe Gibbs is in the Hall of Fame. He doesn’t need any more NFL accolades, but I would like to suggest that the Pro Football Hall of Fame adopt something they can call “The Joe Gibbs Rule”. It will only apply to coaches or GMs who are elected to the Hall of Fame because it really would not make much sense to apply it to players. In essence, the rule is that if a Hall of Fame coach/GM makes a comeback into the NFL after his enshrinement, his bust will be removed from the Hall of Fame and will only be returned to its spot in the Hall five years after the subsequent retirement of said coach/GM – and with a one-time up-or-down vote of the selection committee for the Hall of Fame where a simple majority vote is needed.
Let’s face it; Joe Gibbs did not distinguish himself in his return to the NFL. His overall record for this latest run with the Redskins is below .500 in a league where teams one game over .500 routinely make it into the playoffs. This second incarnation – served without any great distinction – is a part of his “body of work” and it should be assessed as part of his worthiness for the Hall of Fame. But it will not.
The fact is that enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame is an event with finality attached to it. So, when someone “unfinalizes” their career with a comeback, it is more than merely appropriate for him to cede his spot in the Hall until such time as it regains said finality – - and some folks decide if the new career taken as a whole is worthy of enshrinement.
Who will be the next Redskins’ coach? Looking to history as a judge, Danny Boy Snyder will hire someone to coach the team who will also “make a publicity splash” when his name is announced and whose ascension to this position will afford Danny Boy loads of TV time. There are not a lot of coaches out there who will fill that description. Bill Cowher does; Pete Carroll does; Mike Ditka does… Stay tuned.
In other NFL news, it seems as if JP Losman has not reacted well to losing the starting QB job in Buffalo. Now that Trent Edwards seems to have the inside track to the job, Losman is asking to be released from the final year of his rookie contract. His agent says that if the team does not trade him or release him, Losman will simply walk away at the end of next year when his contract is up.
There just is no really polite way to say this, but JP Losman has yet to show sufficient on-field skills to be in a position where he can make demands of whatever team happens to have him under contract at the moment. In fact, I doubt there would be a bevy of teams lining up to name him as their starter next year.
Newspapers in Florida report that the Jacksonville Jaguars will be raising ticket prices next year. That may not seem to be blockbuster news; after all, the team is in the playoffs this year. However, the Jaguars have not been able to sell out all their home games at the lower prices this season; the Jags had to black-out three home games because they did not sell out the stadium. Oh, and recall that there are those 10,000 tarp-covered seats in the stadium that the team does not even attempt to sell. Am I missing something here or did the Jacksonville City Council find a way to repeal the Law of Supply and Demand?
Before the good folks in Jacksonville accuse me of picking on them for lukewarm support of their team, let me also point out that the San Diego Chargers would have been in black-out mode for their playoff game against the Titans last weekend had the league stuck to the letter of their rules regarding TV blackouts. That is simply pathetic and that is why the Chargers are usually on the short list of teams that would be looking for a move to somewhere else whenever NFL realignment is the topic of discussion.
As Bill Parcells continues to draw scrutiny with regard to his moves relative to a new head coach and player personnel, you can draw some insight from these two snippets from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:
1. “Parcells announced he wanted no ”problem children” as players. Then soon after, he re-signed Ricky Williams. Hmm.”
2. “Passover. Jewish holiday? Or good nickname for Dolphins’ secondary?”
I mentioned the Pro Football Hall of Fame above and that leads me to a comment on the Baseball Hall of Fame who elected Goose Gossage into the Hall today. Later this year, Gossage will join several folks selected by the Veterans’ Committee on the way into the Hall. One of those other guys is former commissioner, Bowie Kuhn.
I am 99% certain that it was Kuhn as commish who thought that the inclusion of Negro League players into the Baseball Hall of Fame should be accomplished by building a separate wing for those Negro League participants. As I recall, this was his position in the mid-to-late 1970s. Apparently, the Veterans’ Committee did not penalize Kuhn for his two decade lapse in grasping the meaning of the concept enunciated by the US Supreme Court in the mid-1950s that “separate but equal is not equal”.
Finally, now that the Holidays are over and you have spent time with the family and seen boatloads of pictures of everyone, has it occurred to you that there is something very wrong when someone shows you a picture and says, “This is a picture of me/Auntie Maude/cousin Claude/whomever when I/she/he was younger…” Here is a News Flash folks: Every photo of everyone ever taken is one taken when that person was younger.
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…