By Leonard Shapiro
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, January 9, 2008 11:40 AM

Good for Joe Gibbs.

Good for his family.

Good for his health.

Good for his future.

Did you see the 10,000-kilowatt smile on Gibbs' beaming face Tuesday as he spoke on the first day of the rest of his life at his farewell news conference? Didn't it seem as if the weight of the world had just been lifted from his shoulders? Didn't he look about 10 years younger? And wasn't it so nice to hear that famous Gibbs cackle again, a sound we grew so accustomed to in the glory years of Super Bowl titles his first time around this block?

Sadly over the last four years, there did not appear to be much mirth and precious little laughter around Redskins Park as Gibbs struggled mightily to reacquaint himself with the NFL and get the franchise back on a championship path. That road had been strewn with far more potholes than Gibbs could have imagined when he came back for a second act that, realistically, now deserves mixed reviews, at best, despite owner Daniel Snyder's insistence Tuesday that "I like where we are."

Ten weeks ago, a few days after a devastating and clearly embarrassing 52-7 loss to the New England Patriots, it was written in this space that Gibbs would be wise to walk away when the season ended. As painful as it was to type the words, it just wasn't working the second time around.

His team was reeling. They were blowing halftime leads, which hardly ever happened from 1981 to '92, when Gibbs was considered one of the all-time masters of the halftime adjustment. Clock management continued to be a major issue. The play-calling, once his greatest strength, had been yielded to an underling and often was baffling. And Gibbs, at 67, clearly seemed a step or two slower than in the glory days of his Hall of Fame first run in the Nation's Capital.

A few weeks later, the Redskins hit rock bottom at 5-7 when the coach made what he has since described as the worst gaffe, as well as the lowest point, of his entire coaching career. The two-timeout, ice-the-kicker debacle in the final seconds of an agonizing loss to the Buffalo Bills occurred the day before his grief-stricken team flew to Miami to help bury teammate Sean Taylor, who had been murdered in his South Florida home in a bungled robbery attempt.

At that point, there couldn't have been a better head coach at the helm of this team. Gibbs had always been at his very best in crisis situations. How else to explain holding his teams together to win Super Bowls in two strike-shortened seasons, or winning three of them with three different quarterbacks, a feat no coach in league history has ever accomplished?

And so, with Gibbs leading the way, the Redskins played through their sorrow and summoned the strength to rally. They won their last four games and somehow got into the playoffs before reality set in last Saturday in Seattle, and Gibbs could finally take a few moments to think about his own life and future, and what direction he wanted it to take.

Much to his credit, he chose his family over football, just as a man of his unassailable moral fiber and faith would be expected to do. He did it even though it meant walking away from a profession he has always loved, despite its often-cruel toll on the lives of anyone who takes on one of these all-consuming, sleep-on-the-office-couch jobs.

Gibbs can certainly leave with his head held high, despite his team's sub-.500 record and one playoff victory in his four-year encore. Anyone who even dares to think that his Hall-of-Fame career has been tarnished over that span need only look at his masterful and truly inspiring performance over the last month to know the foolishness of that premise.

Still, with all of that being said, and despite the insistence of both Gibbs and Snyder that the organization has been stabilized with greater glory just around the corner, we're not quite prepared to take such a gigantic leap of faith.

If anything, Tuesday's news conference confirmed what we've suspected all along, that Snyder remains very much in the decision-making loop on all matters pertaining to his football team. He may have taken a far lower profile in recent seasons, demurring to his childhood idol as the public face of the organization. But when Gibbs said Tuesday that "over four years, we made all the decisions together," that should not necessarily be taken as a positive sign for the future of this franchise.

The translation ought to seem obvious. There's a reason Snyder steadfastly refuses to hire a general manager for his team: he clearly still thinks of himself as the de facto GM. He is The Decider on all things football, and enabler Vinny Cerrato apparently will continue in perpetuity as his main yes-man.

With Gibbs moving on, once again we're left to wonder if there will be anyone else in the building, including his next head coach, with the moxie to stand up to the 43-year-old owner and tell him how much he doesn't know about building a championship team. For now, we'll take Snyder at his word that he listened and learned from Gibbs over the last four years. But it also won't take very long to see how much he actually retained.

Gibbs now takes on the nebulous role as a so-called adviser to Snyder, and no doubt will be trying to convince him to avoid the temptation of going after a big-name coach and keep some continuity in place by hiring Gregg Williams, the team's assistant coach for defense, as his replacement. That would be the prudent choice, popular with many players who have already gone on record as saying yet another upheaval -- the sixth head coach in Snyder's eight-year tenure -- would be counter-productive.

Bill Cowher? His long-time mentor and best friend in football is Marty Schottenheimer. You think Marty is telling him to take the money and run to the Nation's Capital to coach for a man who fired him after what Schottenheimer has always said was the best coaching job of his life, salvaging 8-8 from an 0-5 start?

Does Snyder truly understand the virtue of patience? Or will the owner now revert to his flash-over-substance days of trying to corral the biggest names on the planet -- players and coaches -- to come work at what had always been a dysfunctional Redskins Park in the pre-Gibbs days?

As for the football team Gibbs leaves in his wake, it's definitely in better shape than when he arrived following the Steve Spurrier disaster, but still far behind the league's elite. New England 52, Washington 7, the fourth worst loss in franchise history and the worst loss of Gibbs career, offered a slap-in-the-face benchmark on how far this team still has to go to approach that lofty level.

There is a promising kid quarterback with great potential, but until Jason Campbell stops throwing critical interceptions in the fourth quarter, pardon us for holding off on anointing him the savior of the franchise. They're still in desperate need of a big, physical wide receiver, and Santana Moss drops far too many balls. The offensive line should be better with the addition of injured Jon Jansen, but running back Clinton Portis -- despite his late-season rush -- may well be on the down side after six seasons of pounding.

Williams' defense held up for the most part. The front four pass rush greatly improved from a year ago. But replacing Taylor, their most talented player, won't be easy and they'll likely lose their best corner, Shawn Springs, to free agency. Middle linebacker London Fletcher had a fine season, but at 33 is hardly a long-term fixture, and once-promising outside linebacker Rocky McIntosh has to be a question mark going in to the offseason after major reconstructive knee surgery. And did we mention the club is $20 million over the salary cap?

But this is all hot stove stuff, with plenty of time before the draft in April and training camp in July to contemplate a Redskins future without their Hall of Fame coach.

For now, why not just give it a rest and simply say it one more time? Good for Joe Gibbs, good for his family, good for his health and good for his future. And good for the followers of Washington's favorite sports franchise that he graced us all with his pride, his patience, his passion and his presence one more time before exiting with pure class, a welcome smile and that signature cackle we'll not soon forget.

Leonard Shapiro can be reached at Badgerlen@hotmail.com or badgerlen@aol.com.