Coaching Confidential: Inside the Fraternity of NFL Coaches by Gary Myers Page A

and you just try to do the best you can to handle it from day to day.”
    Gibbs’s strength held the Redskins together during the week. He was the leader, the foundation of the organization. The players and staff looked to him for guidance.
    Gibbs didn’t second-guess the organization’s decision to allow Taylor to return to his Miami home instead of forcing him to remain in Virginia to keep rehabilitating his knee. “I never really did think a lot about that,” Gibbs said. “It was a decision where we felt it was best for him personally. He wanted to get the situation squared away with his house so he could come back and be more focused on football.”
    Gibbs knew his players and knew this was going to be the toughest challenge he ever faced as a head coach. “Our players were distraught,” he said. “Looking them in the eye, you see it had a huge impact on them.”
    If the season had not slipped away already, it was surely hanging by its fingertips on the edge of a cliff with a three-hundred-foot drop. Gibbs was always adept at finding ways to motivate his team. He was such a good coach that he often could impose his will on the other team by the sheer brilliance of his game plans. Defenses knew that Gibbs loved the counter trey, a misdirection running play, and that he loved it even more when he had John Riggins. Nobody could stop it.
    This was different. It had nothing to do with X’s and O’s. This took Gibbs out of his comfort zone. Less than a week after Taylor died, the Redskins were playing a home game against the Buffalo Bills. If they had any desire to remain in the race for a wild-cardspot, it was imperative that they beat the Bills. But they had to play with broken hearts, the most debilitating injury of all. Gibbs says Taylor is one of the top five athletes he’s ever coached, but it was more than that now. There was a death in the family. A young lady lost her fiancé. A little girl lost her father. Parents lost their son. And Redskins Nation lost one of its best players. How could the Redskins summon the strength to play a football game? During the week, Gibbs had Portis and Santana Moss, another player from Miami, speak to the team about Taylor. Gibbs was dealing with fifty-two personalities who would all attempt to process the loss in their own way.
    The Redskins distributed white towels with Taylor’s number 21 to the fans at FedEx Field. Taylor’s locker was encased in Plexiglas. There was a four-minute video tribute to Taylor prior to the game and the Redskins’ marching band wore black hats. Defensive coordinator Gregg Williams elected to open the game with only ten defensive players for the first play. The eleventh spot belonged to Taylor; his replacement, Reed Doughty, stood on the sidelines. Williams made the decision without first consulting with Gibbs. He had described Taylor as being like a son to him, and this was his way of honoring him. “He was going to ride with us one more time,” Williams said.
    Buffalo’s Fred Jackson ran for 22 yards against the ten-man defense.
    It was a strange game. There were ten scores: eight field goals, a safety, and a touchdown. The only touchdown, a 3-yard run by Portis, had given the Redskins a 16–5 lead with 5:42 left in the third quarter. Buffalo moved to within 16–14 on three field goals by Rian Lindell. But now the Bills were on the Redskins’ 33 with eight seconds to go after Buffalo quarterback Trent Edwards spiked the ball to stop the clock.
    As Lindell was about to attempt a 51-yard field goal, Gibbs called time-out. Freezing the kicker at the last possible moment had become the trendy thing to do in the NFL. There was anew rule in the NFL allowing coaches to call time-outs from the sidelines. Denver’s Mike Shanahan began the freezing the kicker movement earlier in the season. Lindell went through with the kick anyway, and it was good. Good move by Gibbs. The points came off the board. There is also a rule in the NFL that you are