Maybe that's stated strongly. Hat tip to MDS for catching a good sized portion of Redskins capology panic in yesterday's Peter King article. We're going piecemeal style, yo:
I think the second life of Joe Gibbs running the Redskins might not end well. Gibbs is 6-10, 10-6, 5-11 and now 5-5 in his four seasons in his second stint as Washington coach. A 26-32 regular-season record. One playoff win. Of the Redskins' final six games this year, five are against teams harboring playoff hopes. Gibbs turns 67 in six days. He doesn't answer the questions about how much longer he'll coach, but it won't be surprising to anyone at Redskins Park if this is it for him. I've gotten the sense that, regardless the outcome of this season, this is it for him.
I think (maybe) qualifying statements with "might" and "I think" drains them of any meaning.
Beyond that, I don't have the foggiest idea what is in Coach Gibbs head. I know reasonable minds disagree with King about the likelihood of that happening:
oe Gibbs isn't going anywhere this offseason but to scout potential first-round picks, meet free agents and watch game film.
Gibbs is not getting fired. He's not quitting.
It doesn't matter what sports talk radio is screaming. Media speculation, blogs, Web sites or anything else are irrelevant, too.
There are only two people that matter in deciding who the Washington Redskins coach will be next year -- owner Dan Snyder and Gibbs. The man who signs the checks and the one who cashes them. Everything else is background noise.
And while Coach may not answer questions about his future
now, he had no trouble explicitly doing so
years ago when similar questions chased him:
"I signed a five-year contract when I came here," Gibbs told a news conference Monday. "Most people sign three-year contracts. My commitment to the Redskins, I want to do every single thing I can to restore the Redskins to winning football games."
"I'd say that my commitment is a minimum of five years. I want to get the Redskins back to winning, and that's first," he said.
I think what the above statement might lack is any qualification whatsoever robbing it of its intended meaning or strength. Of course, circumstances change as do the minds of even accomplished men such as Coach Gibbs, but it's worth noting that he has suffered adversity in the recent past as well, seriously addressed similar issues, and stood by his word. That might not tell us anything about the next two years. Unless it does.
What will or won't he do is a question answered by Coach. What he should or shouldn't do is a question answerable by reader(s) in the comments section. Personally, I place a huge emphasis on coaching continuity and thus am very deliberate about switching coaches. I don't know if coaching continuity is as important regarding Coach Gibbs, since he doesn't call a lot of plays, but the players are familiar with him, know what he asks of them, and he seems to have an overall plan for the team. Also, Coach Gibbs is an icon to me approaching near sacred Cow status that I'm reluctant to give up. Just my two cents, I want yours in the comments. Continuing from King:
There is only one team with less than $5 million in 2008 cap room left as we stand right now, and that team, to no one's surprise, is Washington. It would be understandable if the 'Skins were a few bucks north or south of the $116-million cap figure for 2008, but the Redskins are miles away from that. They are $19.5 million OVER the 2008 cap as we sit here this morning. That means they're $25 million worse-off than any team in the NFL entering the offseason.
Sounds like it's grown; as of
October 24th, Warpath Redskins Cap Summary had us at 120M, which would only be 4M over. I'll trust Peter King, for now.
What is causing this dramatic increase? Few things, first, Clinton Portis goes up from 4M to nearly 9M, likely in an escalating base salary, so he accounts for a good chunk of the overall increase. Mark Brunell counts for 6.5M of that 2008 number, 5M or it in base salary, and you're drunk if you think he'll see 5M in base in '08. So mark it down. Jansen goes up from around 3.5M to nearly 9M; I'm pretty sure the increase is due to our strategy of restructuring this year's base salary into guaranteed money prorated over the remainder of his contract. Doing that shifts money paid in the present to money paid in the future. We can do the same thing next year to bring down his quintupled base salary although the concern is that the money will have to be paid (against the cap at least) eventually no matter what. As players age, this becomes a more and more risky financial maneuver. Food for thought. Peter King addresses that concern:
Some of this can be cosmetically addressed, like converting a sizable roster bonus due to tight end Chris Cooley in 2008, which would be payable all in 2008, to a signing bonus, which would pro-rate it over the life of his contract. That's fine, except all that does is continually push more and more financial obligation into the future. There's significant dead weight on this cap. If they choose to cut unimportant wideout Brandon Lloyd, that would cost them $7.1 million in cap charges on the '08 ledger.
Assuming King hasn't done the math, and maybe he has, it's actually less than 7.1M since if we cut him we don't have to pay his 600K base salary in '08 either. And the 7.1M is offset further by the fact that we were going to pay him 4.2M in '08 overall anyways.
All in all there might be some difficulty on the horizon, but I tend to agree with MDS:
Although it's maybe not quite as bad as that makes it sound -- there are some accounting tricks that the Redskins can use to give themselves a little cap relief -- it's still really bad. The Redskins won't be able to do as much in 2008 to bolster their roster as other teams will do...
He adds that since we're already in the bottom of the East, this is cause for consternation. What I'd say is
no problemo. Nothing about what the Redskins have done in the past -- making big splashes in the offseason -- has helped us win increasing volumes of games, so there's really no reason to presume that "do[ing] as much" on any given year is that wonderful. In the grand scheme of things, Adam Archuleta and Brandon Lloyd both required us to do something in the offseason that I'd just as soon we not have done. You can weigh the good (London Fletcher) against the bad (TJ Duckett) but at teh end of the day, in order of importance, it goes A) correctness of dollars spend followed by B) quantity of dollars spent. Right?
Or not, let me know. Please. Does anyone read this website?