So...Did the game pass them by while they were away?
 

Bill Parcels, Dallas Cowboys: 3-7
Joe Gibbs, Washington Redskins: 3-7
Dick Vermeil, Kansas City Chiefs: 3-6

All are coaches who were extremely successful, took time away from the game for one reason or another, then returned... :shrug:

DV wasn't gone that long. The jury is still out on him, IMO (I realize there is much disagreement with this).

Same with Gibbs, he hasn't even completed his first season, and he has a mess from the previous coach to clean up. To judge him this soon is bullshit.

Parcells - great last year, the secondary has unexplicably disappeared this year.
Gibbs - who knew Brunell would go from hero to zero in an instant. I'd take their D in a heartbeat.
DV - who the f@ck knows? My head hurts.

I don't see it as "cleaning up" Spurrier's "mess"...I think it proves Spurrier didn't have shit to work with either....

After how many years? It's not liek Spurrier was there for only one season. He was there long enough to have an impact.

But even if your assertion is true, that still leaves you with no basis to question Gibbs' ability to coach at this juncture.

I'm sorry, but the Redskins are not a mess. They are turning into a solid team, that made a horrible miscalculation at QB. Brunell is making Ryan Leaf look studly, a feat not portended by anything in his past.

I'd say NO .

3-7 is a mess no matter how you rationalize it...

No, to my mind, a mess if something where the answers are either nonevident or so broad spectrumed as to be dispiriting. The Chiefs are a mess because their standouts have proven themselves capable of costing us the game just as easily as the weak points. The Redskins have an idenfiable, high profile, Achilles heel. They're not facing myriad problems, they're facing a few, evident, problems.

Both Peyton Manning's and Troy Aikman's rookie seasons were a mess by your standards, but not by the standards of those in the know.

Bill Parcels: "You are what you are."

Is he in the know?

DV was away from coaching for quite awhile. What...15-20 years? Long enough to pass him by. Although he is a .500 coach.

That, grasshopper, is a cliche. Completely devoid of substance.
Put it this way.
If you had the choice, would you prefer to be sitting the ER with a life threatening disease that has all the doctors stumped, or with a burst appendix that needs to be removed?

The SB in 99 earned him the right to judge 'passed him by' status as measured from the end of his HCing stint with the Rams.

The first time, and then he came back and won Super Bowl.

Before coming to the Chiefs I believe he was only away a year (maybe two).

What about Clinton Portis? He averaged 5.5 yds/carry the last couple years, this year he's averaging 4.0 yds/carry and has only 2 touchdowns (and one of those was on his first carry of the season) to go with 4 fumbles. That's not what they thought they were trading for... I don't know if I'd call the team a mess but there's no way you can call the Skins a "solid" team while calling the Chiefs a "mess". Then again I guess people want to do that because the Skins are what most people want the Chiefs to be, a team with several high profile free agent pick-ups.