Why Doesn't "Gibbs' Football" Work for the Redskins?

Well here's a question for you then (and everyone else) is it better to play to your own strengths, or against the opponents' weakness?

Case in point for this past weekend, our strengths so far this season have been our running game and our defense. For all of Campbell's potential and the flashes we've seen, the passing offense isn't necessarily a strength at the moment.

On the other hand, the Giants' weakness most would agree is their pass defense.

So what's the right strategy? My feeling is you do what you do best and make the other team stop you at what you do best. It's like jsarno said in a fantasy football thread (to paraphrase) "If you're going to lose, lose with your best."

What sayeth thou?That depends on what your team understands better.

If you think you are a running team, but you don't have dominant run blockers and great backs, then it does no good to try to run the ball all day, even if the media thinks thats your "bread and butter."

If you think the opponent has a bad pass defense, but in acutality they are pretty good at defending the pass, it does no good to throw it on them.

To me, it's obvious that "playing to our strengths" actually means throwing the football especially off of play action. But playing to our opponents weaknesses...for Detroit thats everything.

If you execute, scheme matters none at all. So can we execute our strengths even if the defense is going to be all over it? I'm not paid nearly enough to answer that question.

Do we even know where our strengths lie? No idea. Kinda scary.

To me, it's obvious that "playing to our strengths" actually means throwing the football especially off of play action.

I agree. I haven't looked at the stats, but it seems like we aren't doing enough play action. Or, at least we aren't calling it when it would be most effective. It seems like we always run 1 too many run plays right before we play action, and if we'd play action 1 play earlier we'd totally catch the defense off guard.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way Gibbs coaches football. His philosophies are as sound today as they were 2 decades ago. It's always been about execution with him. During the first go round he didn't have to worry about losing his players to free agency so he could get them coached up to the point where they were performing exactly the way he envisioned. We're not there yet.

Personally, i think Gibbs' style is the exact opposite of all of the special game planning, exotic, scheming styles you've seen more recently. He's going to play the same way, week in, week out with a few important wrinkles thrown in. He just seems to feel that he can get his players to the point where their execution and thorough understanding of fundamentally sound football will prevail against a team that is playing a new scheme every week.

This is one reason I think we will beat the Patriots this year. Everyone else worries about what formation/style they're going to play because they're so versatile. JG doesn't care. He's going to run it right at them and it's up to them to stop it. It's not subtle but it's gotten us three superbowl wins.

I get charged up everytime I see our offense run a counter tre. Same thing with the play action to Moss. That's Redskins' football, man! We're not the 99 Rams, we're not the 49ers of the late 80s, we're the Redskins and we're going to run over you until you are so focused on stopping that aspect, that we can go over the top for a back breaking 60 yd touchdown. How can you criticize that??? It's worked so well in the past, it will work again.

I'm tired of these sky is falling, chick little mother fuckers that sit at their keyboard with a mouse in one hand and kleenex in the other, just waiting for their chance to get off by bitching about this team. You want to piss on the redskins and their staff ALL OF THE TIME? Why are you a fan? Why do you CHOOSE to affiliate yourself with a team that so clearly makes you miserable? What is so wrong with your perspective that the only way you can interact with other fans of the same team you supposedly follow is to bitch and moan about everything they do?


If you are calling for Gibbs to be fired or simply need to post a thread about how he doesn't know how to call a game EVERY WEEK remember this:

Only. Active. Coach. In. The. Hall. Of. Fame.

Clear? Good.

Well here's a question for you then (and everyone else) is it better to play to your own strengths, or against the opponents' weakness?

Case in point for this past weekend, our strengths so far this season have been our running game and our defense. For all of Campbell's potential and the flashes we've seen, the passing offense isn't necessarily a strength at the moment.

On the other hand, the Giants' weakness most would agree is their pass defense.

So what's the right strategy? My feeling is you do what you do best and make the other team stop you at what you do best. It's like jsarno said in a fantasy football thread (to paraphrase) "If you're going to lose, lose with your best."

What sayeth thou?

Well, that's why you game plan for each opponent differently. You see what your strengths are and how they relate to your opponents' strengths and weaknesses. If your going strength against strength, it comes down to seeing who's the better team.

A great team will always find and exploit their opponents' weaknesses. Great teams are well balanced with few obvious weaknesses. Again, two great teams go strength against strength, and the better team wins.

Right now in Gibbs II, we have a good team, but we have obvious weaknesses. So, bad teams, decent teams, good teams will play to their strengths, but will hide weaknesses. Our weakness is the passing game because of an inexperienced quarterback. Luckily for us, Campbell is growing more confident with each game. In every game, out of any mistakes he makes, there is always at least one thing that Campbell does that impresses me and reassures me that he's becoming a very good quarterback in this league. Once Campbell reaches the point of being a feared quarterback, then you'll be able to finally see why Gibbs is in the hall of fame, and what he has tried to build in the present day. We might not see it until he steps down, but rest assured, the success we will have will have a lot to do with Gibbs as an overall organizer and coach of this team.

Hey folks, first time posting, long time reader.

Since I have been a fan for a long time I guess I can throw my 2 cents in about Coach Gibbs. The only question I have about Gibbs is (and it goes with last weeks game) this. Does Joe Gibbs have what it takes to run the score up on other teams? We all know how good hearted of a man he is and I have nothing but respect for him, but he is getting on in years and I just don't know if he would run a score up on a team. I think the players respect him, he is a hall of fame coach, and he did win us 3 SB. But would he do the same thing to the Giants that Andy Reid did to the Lions? I have a hard time believing that the Giants D turned a 180 in our visitor locker room. I think Gibbs fully believed that we were up by 14 points and it was time to start running out the clock. The goal line stance was another thing, Jason could have tried passing a safe one into the end zone instead of spiking the ball on first down if it had not worked then the clock is stopped with plenty of time, he had just made some really nice passes to get there. As for the last play I think we saw a young QB in him. QB's like Brady and P. Manning would have taken more time, but that didn't concern me as much as the lack of big open plays in the 2nd half, I think we could have put another 14 on the board, but again thats just me.

I am certainly not bashing Gibbs, I don't have the heart to do that, I have way too much repsect for him to ever get on him.

With a good O-line and an accurate QB, Gibbs system has and will always work in this league. Someone mentioned earlier that our execution is what's not working. True, we have a beat up O-line and JC's needs to improve his long pass accuracy - however, Gibbs' playcalling is also a major constraint.

When we're up, Gibbs plays not to lose instead of trying to put teams away. Our opponents are making half time adjustments to neutralize our offense, and we're not one-upping their adjustments with our own. That's a pretty lethal combination - our vanilla play calls against their half time adjustments.

Since Gibbs' return, we've lost 11 of 26 games where we led at the half. That's a pretty telling stat. We cannot win a SB with this coach. Thanks for the great years in '82-'91, but as Gibbs himself said when he returned - the past buys us nothing.

Hey folks, first time posting, long time reader.

Since I have been a fan for a long time I guess I can throw my 2 cents in about Coach Gibbs. The only question I have about Gibbs is (and it goes with last weeks game) this. Does Joe Gibbs have what it takes to run the score up on other teams? We all know how good hearted of a man he is and I have nothing but respect for him, but he is getting on in years and I just don't know if he would run a score up on a team. I think the players respect him, he is a hall of fame coach, and he did win us 3 SB. But would he do the same thing to the Giants that Andy Reid did to the Lions? I have a hard time believing that the Giants D turned a 180 in our visitor locker room. I think Gibbs fully believed that we were up by 14 points and it was time to start running out the clock. The goal line stance was another thing, Jason could have tried passing a safe one into the end zone instead of spiking the ball on first down if it had not worked then the clock is stopped with plenty of time, he had just made some really nice passes to get there. As for the last play I think we saw a young QB in him. QB's like Brady and P. Manning would have taken more time, but that didn't concern me as much as the lack of big open plays in the 2nd half, I think we could have put another 14 on the board, but again thats just me.

I am certainly not bashing Gibbs, I don't have the heart to do that, I have way too much repsect for him to ever get on him.

Remember when Gibbs ran up the score on the 49ers in 2005?

USATODAY.com - Redskins golden vs. 49ers 52-17 (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/games/2005-10-23-redskins-49ers_x.htm)

I think he's still got it.

If I recall correctly, about 6 or 7 of those 11 losses (that we blew at halftime) happened last season where our defense was abysmal. I believe that with a strong defense you run, run, run, play-action pass with a lead. No gimmicks. Just football. It didn't work for us this past Sunday but I don't think you throw the baby out with the bathwater (or whatever the expression is)

With a good O-line and an accurate QB, Gibbs system has and will always work in this league. Someone mentioned earlier that our execution is what's not working. True, we have a beat up O-line and JC's needs to improve his long pass accuracy - however, Gibbs' playcalling is also a major constraint.

When we're up, Gibbs plays not to lose instead of trying to put teams away. Our opponents are making half time adjustments to neutralize our offense, and we're not one-upping their adjustments with our own. That's a pretty lethal combination - our vanilla play calls against their half time adjustments.

Since Gibbs' return, we've lost 11 of 26 games where we led at the half. That's a pretty telling stat. We cannot win a SB with this coach. Thanks for the great years in '82-'91, but as Gibbs himself said when he returned - the past buys us nothing.
I disagree that JC needs to work on his long pass accuracy. He has problem with the short stuff and seeing the the entire field. He has hit a long ball in every game.

First of all, I'm not about to apologize for being a Gibbs' fan. People want to throw all that "You drink the Kool-Aid" "You think Gibbs can do no wrong" accusations they want. Do I think he's infallible? Of course not. But he was the centerpiece of the team during the 80's and the biggest reason I'm part of this site. If not for him, I'm probably not that big a fan. The Redskins were a huge part of my childhood. I have a lot of great memories thanks to the Redskins and Joe Gibbs. For those that grew up in my generation I'm sure you can relate. For those that didn't and don't care about Gibbs, understand what Gibbs means to us.

All that said, here's my question. Why is that people think Gibbs' style of football can't win in today's NFL?

"Gibbs' Football" permeates throughout the league. The single back sets you see all throughout the league, you can thank Joe Gibbs for that. The Steelers offense that won them a Super Bowl 2 years ago, and has them at 3-0 this year, you can thank Joe Gibbs for that. The Trips formations that the aforementioned Steelers and defending champion Colts use, you can thank Joe Gibbs for that. The multiple (2-3) tight end sets that arguably the two best teams in the NFL today (Cowboys and Patriots) use, you can thank Joe Gibbs for that.

These are all Joe Gibbs innovations. He's one of the most creative coaches the NFL has seen in the last 30 years and his impact is felt throughout the league.

So why do people insist his way won't work in today's NFL? And I know it hasn't at a consisent level so far for the Redskins. But it does for others.

Why is that?

It does work. We just don't have the talent to run it and he's to god damn hard headed to realize it. The two play calls at the end of the game shows that.