Gibbs Does His Best Work in the Playoffs

First-year coaches? On the inside, however, nobody is more competitive than Gibbs or sets higher demands of those who want to be part of his football or NASCAR teams. If anybody thinks Gibbs's expectations, of himself and his team, have changed an iota since the '80s, they are badly fooled.

Though he'll never say it, Gibbs fully expects to go to Tampa and beat the Bucs. Why? Because for starters, the Bucs are not terribly good. The Bucs' strength is defense: No. 8 in points allowed. If that's their edge, it's not a big one. The Redskins were No. 9. More important to Gibbs is that the Bucs spent most of their season playing down to the level of an extremely weak schedule while the Redskins spent their year trying to play up to the level of a tough schedule.

The Bucs played seven games, nearly half their season, against teams that lost 12 or more games -- the worst patsies in the NFL. Yet they only outscored the league for the year by 26 points. For an 11-5 team, that's lame. The Bucs lost to the horrid 49ers and Jets, barely beat the lowly Packers by a point and the even worse Lions by four. Three weeks ago, New England undressed them, 28-0. Meantime, the Redskins played 10 games against teams with nine wins or more and outscored the league by a respectable 66 points. They also beat three division champions: Seattle (13-3), Chicago (12-4) and the Giants (11-5).

"We play in a division that is extremely tough. I don't know of a tougher division," said Gibbs. "You're battle-tested."

They're more battle-tested than the Bucs, that's for sure.

Few things please Gibbs more than preparing for a revenge game against a team that beat him earlier in the year. This season's turnabout against the Giants -- from an 0-36 loss to a 35-20 win -- is an extreme example. But throughout his 14 seasons, Gibbs's teams have improved by an average of 17 points in their rematches against teams that previously beat them. That's far beyond any normal statistical probability. The most obvious explanation is that Gibbs and his staff learn a whole lot more from studying the film how they lost that first game than you learn from studying how you beat them.

Within minutes of making the playoffs, Gibbs was employing his familiar motivational methods. "I thought we played one of our best games down there [in Tampa], but we couldn't win," he said of the 36-35 loss eight weeks ago. What he didn't say was that the Bucs probably played their second-best game of the season to win and needed a controversial last-minute call to boot.

Around the NFL, there's a consensus that the Redskins, while improving, aren't serious contenders yet. When the Redskins won recent road games in St. Louis, Phoenix and Philly, you could feel a generous impulse among players and media to pat the Redskins on the head for returning the franchise to respectability. However, anyone who thinks Gibbs has endured the aggravations of NFL life as a 65-year-old diabetic grandfather just so he can go "one and out" in the playoffs is mistaken.

After the Eagles victory, several Redskins prepared to douse Gibbs with Gatorade. Trainer Bubba Tyer, an old hand from the Gibbs I Era, contemptuously knocked the bucket over. First, don't give Joe pneumonia when he needs to work 20 hours a day. Second, get serious. If you play for Joe, you don't celebrate being in a three-way tie for the 11th best record in a 32-team league.

"We know we're going to have a tough road," Gibbs said of the coming playoffs, "but we're thrilled to be in."

Funny, he said "a tough road," not "a tough game." Does sneaky old Joe think he may visit more than one city this January?