The Passion of the Gibbs: Week 13 Preview
If I was a passionate Redskins backer—and I am—I’d be watching this game very carefully. Because if there was ever a week for the Skins to begin a reversal of fortunes it’s now.
This week’s home game is a rematch with our divisional foes from New York, so there’s an opportunity for comparison. When these two teams last met, the Giants won by virtue of seven Redskins turnovers—the most takeaways for New York in a non-strike season since 1986. Still, despite the Redskins unintended generosity, the Giants only won 20-14, and Coach Gibbs lacked the timeout necessary to challenge the seventh turnover—a Clinton Portis fumble that would have likely been reversed on review.
The Giants used that win as a rallying point—silencing critics of Tom Coughlin who had made him out to be an unlikeable jerk and racing to a 5-2 record. Since then, however, the Giants and Redskins have been leading parallel lives-—a moribund offense, a quarterback change, and oddly similar contests against division leading Philadelphia in consecutive weeks. Now Gibbs, after stapling Clinton Portis to the bench during last week’s close loss to Pittsburgh, finds himself facing the same kind of heat Coughlin received at the season’s outset, as the sports scribes wonder if the game has passed Gibbs by.
(AP Photo of Joe Gibbs from NFL.com)
These parallel lives intersect this weekend at Fed Ex Field, and I suspect we’ll have an opportunity to see what kind of progress this team has made. The defense is still the class of the NFC, and stand a good chance at bedeviling Giants rookie Eli Manning. Patrick Ramsey has been making small steps of progress over the past two games and could have some opportunities against New York’s middling defense. And after being at the center of the firestorm this week, you’d expect Clinton Portis to be fired up to play. Behind the numbers of the past two week’s losses, the Redskins have started to slow their slide—last weeks loss in Pittsburgh came close to looking respectable. Seems like this week could be a good time for a turning point.
In related news that could impact the Redskins’ future, the Cleveland Browns parted ways with head coach Butch Davis this week, which means Browns offensive coordinator Terry Robiskie will be calling the shots for the rest of the season as interim head coach—a position he occupied for the Redskins after Dan Snyder sacked Norv Turner. It’s widely reported that Snyder and Robiskie had a bad breakup, but since Romeo Crennel appears to be in the catbird seat for the Cleveland head coaching job, it makes you wonder: might Terry rejoin Gibbs’ crew in Washington? He could be just the guy to heal Washington’s wounded passing game.