The Jack Pardee Years

Pardee was ultimately too loyal to veterans that were his former teammates in the Over the Hill Gang. In '78, he led the Skins to a 6-0 record out of the gate before they faltered badly to finish 8-8. That may be the only time that a team started 6-0 and didn't make the playoffs.

'79 was his best team. The Skins went into Dallas the last week of the year at 10-5. With a win, they would have clinched the division. It looked great as they jumped to a 17-0 lead. Dallas chipped away, but midway through the 4th quarter, John Riggins rumbled for a 66 yard TD to put the Skins up 13. That is when Roger Staubach led the Cowboys back with 2 TD drives in the closing minutes - what made it even more heartbreaking was that the last wild card came down to a point differential tiebreaker, which kept the Skins out of the playoffs. Going from near certain division champs with a road win over our most hated rival to out of the playoffs altogether is to this day the most devastating loss that I've suffered as a Skins fan.

The most notable news from Pardee's last season was that Riggins held out for the entire season, and the team finished 6-10. Beathard's desire to turn over an aging roster won the day when Jack Kent Cooke fired Pardee and brought in Gibbs.

It's funny that Pardee became a run & shoot (Mouse Davis/June Jones) proponent as a college coach at Houston, because by and large, he was a pretty conservative coach here, having learned the ropes playing for George Allen.

Thanks for these anecdotes guys. Really appreciate it, I hope others do as well. Seems like Beathard wanted to focus on youth and a certain more open style of play that didn't mesh with what Pardee wanted so JKC had to decide and gave Beathard the go-ahead to shape the roster and coaching staff. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but I see similarities with Williams-Cerrato-Snyder now. Just in terms of the GM-Coach struggle, the owner going with the GM (or EVP in today's case). Granted, I realize Williams wasn't the HC here, but he was a part of the Redskins family similar to how Pardee was.

I remember Pardee leading those Warren Moon offenses for the Oilers back in the early 1990s

This thread is more so for the backrows and longtimefans of this board. I've always been kind of curious as to what the Jack Pardee years (1978-1980) era was like in Washington, DC.

Seems to be like he wasn't too bad a coach, but he ultimately got run out of town because apparently he and Beathard weren't on the same page right?

Anyway, we always hear about George Allen and Joe Gibbs and for good reason. But I was hoping to get some first hand anecdotes of the Pardee years. Was he a good coach? Did the fans like him? The players? Could he have gotten the team to a SB if given a couple more years? What was his style?

Thanks

He was doomed from the start. The team was old. But I remember his first year he started out something like 6-0 and then it fell apart. Then that next year we would have made the playoffs except Roger S. pulled out a miracle down in Texas 35-34. Anyone remember that game? It was the last game of the 79 season. The clock ran out as Mosely was going to come on and try something like a 58 yarder? Then riggins retired the next year and it was 6-10 and Jack was gone. But what's funny is that in Jack. P. last year we ended up playing SD that year and blowing them out something like 41-10 if I remember correctly. And who was the OC of that SD team? Joe Gibbs.

He was doomed from the start. The team was old. But I remember his first year he started out something like 6-0 and then it fell apart. Then that next year we would have made the playoffs except Roger S. pulled out a miracle down in Texas 35-34. Anyone remember that game? It was the last game of the 79 season. The clock ran out as Mosely was going to come on and try something like a 58 yarder? Then riggins retired the next year and it was 6-10 and Jack was gone. But what's funny is that in Jack. P. last year we ended up playing SD that year and blowing them out something like 41-10 if I remember correctly. And who was the OC of that SD team? Joe Gibbs.

I remember it as it was yesterday. I hate Drew Pearson for life.

Pardee was ultimately too loyal to veterans that were his former teammates in the Over the Hill Gang. In '78, he led the Skins to a 6-0 record out of the gate before they faltered badly to finish 8-8. That may be the only time that a team started 6-0 and didn't make the playoffs.

'79 was his best team. The Skins went into Dallas the last week of the year at 10-5. With a win, they would have clinched the division. It looked great as they jumped to a 17-0 lead. Dallas chipped away, but midway through the 4th quarter, John Riggins rumbled for a 66 yard TD to put the Skins up 13. That is when Roger Staubach led the Cowboys back with 2 TD drives in the closing minutes - what made it even more heartbreaking was that the last wild card came down to a point differential tiebreaker, which kept the Skins out of the playoffs. Going from near certain division champs with a road win over our most hated rival to out of the playoffs altogether is to this day the most devastating loss that I've suffered as a Skins fan.

The most notable news from Pardee's last season was that Riggins held out for the entire season, and the team finished 6-10. Beathard's desire to turn over an aging roster won the day when Jack Kent Cooke fired Pardee and brought in Gibbs.

It's funny that Pardee became a run & shoot (Mouse Davis/June Jones) proponent as a college coach at Houston, because by and large, he was a pretty conservative coach here, having learned the ropes playing for George Allen.

OMG do you remember that game against Dallas in 79???? Roger S. just killed us that day. He pulled that win out all by himself and sent us home. One of the best Redskin Cowboy games of all time. Sucks that we lost though.

He was pretty popular with the fans because he was seen as a natural successor to Allen, having played for him. They had a great team in 1979. They just couldn't shut the door on Dallas in that final game. You talk about the town being depressed on the Monday after a loss. That Monday was X1000. After that, Riggins headed for Kansas and the wheels sort of came off the 1980 season. At the end of that year, Ken Houston lost his starting job, and Pardee wouldn't let him start the final home game even though he was retiring and the fans all thought it would be a nice gesture since the season was in the crapper anyways. He took a lot of heat in the press over that. At least that's how I remember it. Plus, I THINK that Mr. Cooke took over the day to day control of the team from Ed Williams AFTER Pardee had been hired, so I'm not sure he was ever Cooke's guy. I could be wrong about that. The exact details of the ownership and management and who owns what percentage of Pro Football Inc. and so forth is a part of the story that they never quite get around to telling.

I was a kid during the Pardee era. In fact, that's when I first became a serious Skins fan. I remember that folks were excited because he had been a part of the Over-the-Hill-Gang himself as was known for hardnose defense. He was also coming off a playoff year in Chicago.

His first season in Washington, the Skins started 5-0. It was, I believe, Theismann's first year as the fulltime starter and the fans really started to rally around Joey T during that run. Then, they finished 3-8 and fans started calling for Kilmer. (And the kids think a QB controversy in Washington is a new thing!)

I remember that during Pardee's run the defense tended to the star but the defense itself had no "big names". John Riggins was just starting to emerge as the running back he'd later become under Gibbs, but we wasn't yet the star.

In Pardee's first year, we had the famous 9-5 Monday night victory over the Cowboys. In his second year, we were within one blown timeout call by the refs of beating the Cowboys in the last game of the season and winning the division. Then, Riggins sat out his last year and that was that.

Finally, I remember that when JKC fired Pardee the fans were outraged. The outrage only grew worse when he hired some baby-faced offensive coordinator from the pass-happy San Diego Chargers. Everyone dreaded the idea that this kid - Joe Gibbs - would undo Pardee's hard work. Hmm... That sounds familiar somehow...

Yup, these were indeed the formative Redskin years for me, too, when Joe T became my hero. When Jack came on board, I was too young to have much of an opinion on whether it was a good choice. However, what was at least evident even to someone as young as me was that his personality was so starkly different from George Allen's (at least outside of the lockeroom). George Allen's last year is really as far back as my Redskin memories go--I remember the opening day comeback win agains the Giants, the 12-9 loss in their first visit to the Meadowlands, and the Saturday afternoon win against the Rams on the last day of the season, George's last game. With regard to Jack, I guess it's pretty telling, if you're looking for an overall analysis, that his 3 year record was 24-24. Pretty bland, although people with more vivid memories might take issue with that.

He was pretty popular with the fans because he was seen as a natural successor to Allen, having played for him. They had a great team in 1979. They just couldn't shut the door on Dallas in that final game. You talk about the town being depressed on the Monday after a loss. That Monday was X1000. After that, Riggins headed for Kansas and the wheels sort of came off the 1980 season. At the end of that year, Ken Houston lost his starting job, and Pardee wouldn't let him start the final home game even though he was retiring and the fans all thought it would be a nice gesture since the season was in the crapper anyways. He took a lot of heat in the press over that. At least that's how I remember it. Plus, I THINK that Mr. Cooke took over the day to day control of the team from Ed Williams AFTER Pardee had been hired, so I'm not sure he was ever Cooke's guy. I could be wrong about that. The exact details of the ownership and management and who owns what percentage of Pro Football Inc. and so forth is a part of the story that they never quite get around to telling.

I think you're absolutely right about the day-to-day control. Growing up my family never had season tickets, so no regular season games, but my Dad and/or cousin always took me to a preseason game. I used to treasure the programs that they bought me at the games. I remember the '78 program highlighted Edward Bennett Williams as the "managing partner" or something like that. I don't even remember if Jack Kent Cooke was mentioned. Later, in '79 or '80, I remember the ownership page being all about the Squire. Of course, those are just the musty memories of middle-aged man.

I would characterize it best as..........uneventful. Maybe,I have just blocked it out. Jack Pardee was a players coach, popular with the guys, and had a lot of cred because of his playing years.
However, (right or wrong) when I think of those years, I totally think of George Allen, Joe1, but no................Pardee
Good Guy................fair coach (for us)

One day Daseal and Gmanc will regale the younger members of this board with tales of the Spurrier Years