At Darkest Moment, Gibbs Found Spark

"He was basically saying, 'We can do something great by winning these next four ballgames, getting into the playoffs and doing some special things in the playoffs,' " Fletcher said.

Added Cartwright, "I'm thinkin', 'That's what I'm talking about.' "

Gibbs also made another key decision. Mounting injuries to key players coupled with a short workweek -- the Chicago game was on Thursday night -- led to Gibbs deciding to hold a much less demanding practice that Tuesday.

After the Redskins beat the Bears, Gibbs stuck with the change. Wednesdays, normally the team's most intense physical work day, became another walk-through day -- time for players to heal rather than bump helmets and run till they dropped. For the Calvinistic Gibbs, who based his career on his belief in the virtues of long, hard work for his team, this was a sea change.

"It was a big change for me," Gibbs said. "But I just felt like that week was very emotional. And then the short week and everything. All of us talked about it, walking through and mentally being ready. And then the way we played against Chicago; there was a totally different excitement, guys were flying around. So that was it. Wednesdays were walk-through days."

Before he joined Washington's coaching staff, Williams had heard that one of Gibbs's great coaching traits was his ability to understand the mood of his teams. Now he was witnessing it first-hand.

"Coach has done a tremendous job of keeping the thumb on the pulse of what needs to be done around here," Williams said. "I know it took a lot for him to make that change. At the time he did that, he was probably wondering if it was right. But when you see the results and you see the production numbers, I think it's easy to go ahead and continue doing that."

Redskins players appreciated the lighter physical workload. But it went beyond the practice field. Many found their already substantial respect for Gibbs deepen as they watched his response to the Taylor tragedy and followed his lead.

"His ability to just continue to push us to go play was big enough," wide receiver Antwaan Randle El said. "We were struggling. We just lost our friend. But he just kept, 'You gotta practice, you gotta get ready for the game.' He helped everybody realize we gotta push forward. He helped us get through that by telling us, 'Hey, no matter what's going on, we can still win ballgames.'"

"When he put the teams up there that could possibly make it" to the playoffs, "I just thought we could beat everybody up there on the board if we put our mind to it," Cartwright said.

"The message that day was, 'Normally, before you achieve something great in life it's after you go through some difficult times,' " Fletcher said. "[Coach Gibbs] turned out to be the right person for us in this situation."

Before quarterback Todd Collins came off the bench after 10 years as a backup to perform almost flawlessly the past month, before wide receiver Santana Moss's banged-up body began to heal, and before and running back Clinton Portis ran with a renewed purpose and passion, the coach of the Redskins had struck a chord with his players at that morning meeting on Dec. 4.

"When we got out to practice that one day, Mark Brunell came up to me and said, 'I think this is probably the best thing that's happened,'" Gibbs said. "We got back to work."