Which surprises no one, as he always hates the schedule. Per a busy Mark Maske in this morning's Post:
"I always kind of start out saying, 'I never saw one I liked,' " Gibbs said at Redskins Park soon after the schedule was unveiled.
Given that nearly 40% of our games necessarily are against NFC East opponents, I don't think there's really any satisfactory way to schedule those games. If we had one to open and one to close, Gibbs would likely express frustration with the clumping of games in mid season. That said, on a personal note I much prefer a skeptical, unhappy Coach to one who is overly confident. Although often times last year the product on the field didn't suggest it to be the case, Joe Gibbs took every game seriously and viewed it as a legitimate challenge. Even while the rest of the team was proclaiming itself Super Bowl champions, Gibbs' optimism remained muted throughout.
Coach did stress starting strong, which is a good move in my opinion. Despite struggling mid season, the 2005 postseason Redskins did open 3-0. Fans place differing levels of emphasis on the mental aspect of a Football season, though count me firmly among the ranks of those that think confidence is built and accumulated and has a noticeable effect on a team's production.
We'll see a change in how this team approaches the Preseason (emphasis mine):
"It will certainly be important for us to start a lot better than we did last year," Gibbs said yesterday. "We kind of got ourselves in a mess last year."