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Glory Years: The Joe Gibbs Era In Washington Redskins History

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These are hard times for Washington Redskins fan, a group of which I’m proud to consider myself a member. But it wasn’t always that way, and Glory Years is the celebration of the greatest era in Washington Redskins history.

Joe Gibbs Washington Redskins

Most fans remember and younger fans have surely heard, there was a time when the Washington Redskins were a part of the NFL’s elite. It was during Gibbs’ “first term”, his 12-year run as head coach from 1981-92. That run produced four trips to the Super Bowl and three Lombardi Trophies. Even more impressively, Gibbs won his Super Bowls with a different starting quarterback each time.

Glory Years recaptures that 12-year run in all of its detail. Each individual season is a separate article on TheSportsNotebook.com. The twelve different pieces are pulled together and edited to form a cohesive read, a game-by-game narrative of this great period of Redskins history.

In Glory Years, you’ll see how the Gibbs Dynasty was really three separate mini-dynasties, broken down from 1981-85, 1986-88 and 1989-91, with an epilogue in 1992. Gibbs turned over his quarterback, his best running backs and you’ll see that even the famed “Hogs” had different faces moving in and out of the lineup, while still plowing holes and protecting quarterbacks.

You’ll read about the 0-5 start to Gibbs’ first year that made it look like this whole era would never get off the ground. Then the rebound and Super Bowl run of 1982 that included consecutive postseason victories over coaching icons in Bud Grant, Tom Landry and Don Shula. There was the explosive offense in 1983 that came up just one victory short of a repeat title.

1984 saw one more NFC East title on a thrilling final week win over the St. Louis Cardinals, the last big high point for quarterback Joe Theismann and running back John Riggins. 1985’s team missed the playoffs and a re-tooling for a fresh run began.

Jay Schroeder took the reins at quarterback and George Rogers stepped in at running back. The winning started again in 1986 and led to another Super Bowl victory in 1987, although after repeated controversy it was Doug Williams who ended up at quarterback for the postseason and Timmy Smith was a Super Bowl hero in the backfield. A missed playoff year in 1988 marked the time for another retool.

Now it was Mark Rypien’s turn to step in at quarterback and Earnest Byner was acquired for the backfield. The 1989 team went 10-6 though missing the playoffs and in 1990 a return to the postseason party was at hand. It set the stage for Gibbs’ greatest team, one of the best champions in NFL history as the 1991 Washington Redskins destroyed all comers and won the great coach a third ring.

1992 saw one more playoff run and then Gibbs hung it up. The Glory Years were over, a part of history. Gibbs returned for a second term from 2004-07, and while the two playoff appearances made it a success by the standards of Dan Snyder’s ownership, things have never been the same.

They were great years for Redskins fans, when the team we follow not only win games, but was a model for organizational success in the way it turned key personnel over and kept coming back to the top. There were the role models, players like Darrell Green and Art Monk that would make their way to Canton as icons both on and off the field.

It’s all here—every game, every Pro Bowl player and the head coach who oversaw it all. Download Glory Years today and live through the first Gibbs era all over again.

The Best NFL Coach Ever? Bill Belichick Still Ranks Behind Joe Gibbs & Bill Walsh

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The fourth Super Bowl victory for New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has vaulted him squarely in the mix in any discussions of the best NFL coach ever. The four championships are in addition to six AFC crowns and churning out 11-12 wins a season with the efficiency of an assembly line. But unlike Belichick’s quarterback Tom Brady, whom I believe moved to the top of the list at his position, I think the head coach is still trailing a couple other names in my generation (1978 and beyond). Those names are Joe Gibbs and Bill Walsh.

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Gibbs led the Washington Redskins during their glory years of 1981-1992 and while he didn’t match Belichick in terms of sheer volume, the Redskin coach still won three Super Bowls and went to a fourth. Gibbs’ signature achievement is that, alone among other great coaches, he never had stability at the quarterback position for an extended period of time. Gibbs won his championships (1982, 1987, 1991) with three different quarterbacks. And really, it’s four, when you consider that there was a QB controversy for all of 1987.

But it’s not just the quarterback spot that was in flux. He won with different running backs, with John Riggins leading the way at the start of the dynasty and an Earnest Byner/Ricky Ervins combo at the end of it, with George Rogers in between. And for good measure, little-known Timmy Smith set a Super Bowl rushing record in 1987.

Even the offensive line, perhaps what this era of Washington Redskins history, is most remembered for, went through changes. “The Hogs”, of NFL lore, were not the same five players throughout the glory years. Jeff Bostic, Joe Jacoby and Russ Grimm were steady, but other regular starters ranged from Raleigh McKenzie to Ed Simmons to Mark May to Mark Schlereth to Jim Lachey. No matter what the position, Gibbs kept turning personnel over and kept winning.

Finally, Gibbs had never had the advantage of coaching in a bad division, something Belichick has enjoyed most of his career. Gibbs’ rivals were Tom Landry’s Cowboys at the beginning of his career, Bill Parcells’ Giants for much of the latter part of the 1980s, with Buddy Ryan’s Eagles mixed in. When those Redskin teams played a divisional game, there weren’t a lot of Ryan Tannehill’s or E.J. Manuel’s or Mark Sanchez’s dotting the schedule.

The case for Walsh is a little different. Like Belichick, the San Francisco 49er legend found a Hall of Fame quarterback in the middle of the draft, getting Joe Montana in the third round. Walsh won three Super Bowls with Montana (1981, 1984, 1988) before passing the reins to defensive coordinator George Seifert who won one more with Montana in 1989, and another with Steve Young–whom Walsh had acquired–in 1994.

What happened with San Francisco after Walsh retired underscores his greatness. He ran the entire football operation and built a legacy that would endure after his retirement. Furthermore, he changed the way offensive football was played, introducing the West Coast offense. Today, every NFL team uses some form of the system’s basic concepts.

Walsh shifted away from the power-run/throw-deep to a constant use of short passing. And he did without going to the extremes of later versions, such as the run-and-shoot, a four-receiver set that compromised a team’s ability to run the ball when it really it needed to.

The Walsh coaching tree is legendary, spawning countless new head coaches into the NFL stream that changed football forever. Walsh is certainly the most impactful NFL person of my lifetime, and he’s probably the most important historical figure in the league since its founders.

Bill Belichick is a brilliant mind, who has dealt with a salary cap and kept rotating supporting casts around to Tom Brady for fourteen years now. He’s shown amazing creativity in his use of personnel and his willingness to be flexible and adapt to his talent, rather than making the talent adapt to him. It’s why he’s extremely high on any credible list of all-time coaching greats.

But he has to rank behind Gibbs and Walsh. Gibbs never had the anchor of a Tom Brady-type to stabilize the retooling. Walsh went beyond creativity and into a true football revolutionary. Any discussion of Belichick’s rank has to begin at the #3 spot.

Is Gibbs or Walsh #1? I think it depends on how you phrase the question. If you want the coach who simply got the most out of his talent year-in, year-out, then I think Gibbs is the best ever, and it’s really not all that close.

If you want someone who went beyond coaching and into the complete oversight and changing of the game then Walsh is #1, and that really isn’t all that close.

When Gibbs left, the Redskins couldn’t survive without him. When Walsh left, the 49er machine churned on, but with his handpicked talent on the sidelines and on the field. That underscores the difference in their greatness in a nutshell.

Either way, these two men, Joe Gibbs and Bill Walsh, are a cut above everyone else in the modern era of NFL head coaches.

Daily Sports: Orioles-Yanks & 1980s NFL Highlight Friday

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The New York Yankees are six games out of first place in the AL East, and on the outside looking in the wild-card picture. There’s no need to panic, but there is a need to play with some sense of urgency right now, and that sets up a good series this weekend in the Bronx with the Baltimore Orioles. The Birds swept the Yanks last weekend and the return visit starts tonight on MLB Network at 7 PM ET.

If you’re looking for other action on TV’s daily sports docket, I hope you have the day off on this holiday weekend. The other good programming is during the afternoon. Wimbledon will run up until 2 PM ET on ESPN.

You can also watch the best of 1980s NFL on the NFL Network. The Washington Redskins won three Super Bowls, in 1982, 1987 and 1991. Each one came under a different quarterback as Joe Gibbs built his legacy as the one, in my view, who is the best football coach of the Super Bowl era (including Lombardi). From 2 PM ET to 4 PM ET, there are a series of one-hour segments looking at each championship year.


If Gibbs was the best coach, no one was more consequential in the modern development of the NFL than former San Francisco 49ers head coach Bill Walsh, who developed the West Coast passing offense and spawned a tree of coaches unlike anything we’ve seen in any other sport. Walsh’s Super Bowl runs in 1981 and 1984 will be featured in a two-hour window from 5 PM ET to 7 PM ET. Note, for the record, that Walsh only won the Super Bowl in 1988, and the 49ers repeated in 1989 under the leadership of former Walsh assistant George Seifert.

Here at TheSportsNotebook, it’s about NASCAR. The Sprint Cup Series returns to Daytona tomorrow night, and we’ll preview the race here later today. MLB coverage has run from Monday to Thursday and will resume over the weekend.