The Agony Years: What did you hate MOST?

[jauburn]

Between Gibbs I and Gibbs II there were a lot of years, a lot of horrible years in which we had to endure laughably bad teams, coaches with their origins in Dallas, players with their origins in Dallas, multiple million dollar busts, Heath Shuler, head banging, no team chemistry, the Danny's learning curve, on and on.

I call these The Agony Years.

Now, on the verge of our second playoff win, let's use this thread to cleanse our spirits once and for all of those horrible, horrible times.

What did you hate MOST about The Agony Years???

:2cents:

[skinfan2k]

7-1 start and no playoffs.

[Goaldeje]

OM alluded to this last week. I hated that every time we had a slighlty meaningful game, even it was just for pride against Dallas, I want desperately to believe we would win.


But I could never really convince myself.


Never...

[Khun Kao]

The years of Norvousness..... That was what really set a bad precedent at Redskins Park.

Schottenheimer started us back down the right path, but I'm not real crazy about his approach, and neither were a lot of the players....

Spurrier was, and will always be, and NFL punchline. I have almost acheived plausible deniability that those 2 years ever happened.

[cjcdaman]

Giving Deion that HUGE contract, Gus and the headbutt(dumbass!). It goes on. Basically, it was Snyder trying to buy his way to a Championship. This isn't baseball. You need a cohesive unit that will play their hearts out for their coaches. Hmmmm, that sounds like the Skins this year.

[DButz65]

I hated how undisciplined we were during that stretch, all of the penalties, and how we were the laughing stock of the league because of our owner. Glad were rising back towards the top now though!!! yea baby :applause:

[number twenty-eight]

The Agony Years: What did you hate MOST?
What will you do if the Skins lose to Seattle?
Bring back Heath Schuler!


Give it a rest guy.

[jauburn]

For me it was Norv and Deion, both former Dallas Cowboys!

Hiring them was tantamount to saying that rivalries are just marketing bull. Those hirings were a slap in the face of true Redskins fans. Disgraceful time. I don't think I can ever forgive the Danny for that, even though he brought back GIBBS.

[Joe Gibbs II]

Yea, i mean the Titans vs WSH was a "superbowl preview". Our season was on a downward spiral on the last play of the 1st half.

Also i hate how before 2001 or so its hard for me to remember the 1st half of seasons for the skins. I was 12 then and didnt expect me to be a diehard like now, but i hate how i missed out on the gravity of the 7-1 start.

But, i do remember falling in that season and going 0-5 then 5-0 finishing 8-8.

I dunno, have a lot of rough memories but i think the great start to finish out of the playoffs was the worst one.

[DieselPwr44]

You guys/gals who lived through it know who this is. Every press conference..:

"What we do works..."

[jauburn]

The Agony Years: What did you hate MOST?
What will you do if the Skins lose to Seattle?
Bring back Heath Schuler!


Give it a rest guy.

Just shut up and quit hijacking threads. What are you, 14? Get a life.

[Pete]

You guys/gals who lived through it know who this is. Every press conference..:

"What we do works..."


Took the words right out of my mouth............................

[skins4eva]

"We competed hard!" Watching Norv Turner's face on the sideline and that look of helplessness and knowing we were going to screw something up at the most inoportune time.

[Ellis]

Bringing Deion Sanders in. THAT was wrong on so many levels to let a Cowboy even smell a Skins jersey.

[Hogie]

I hated how we never had heart. I had to walk out of FedEx so many times after a loss just depressed about how our team never had any heart.

[Novaskin]

Baltimore fans~! Puke!

[BraveWarrior]

What I hated most was how, after every loss, Norv would say stuff like "we played well, but you can point to one or two things that cost us the game." But he never did anything to prevent bad things from happening. Norv never got the Redskins to make a big play when they needed it, except for some of the games in '99 and the 7-1 start a couple years before that.

[andyburd]

NORVAL, 7 fin years

[kevinklein]

The Ravens winning a Super Bowl so soon after coming into the league...

[NYSkins1]

I hated the fact that I never knew who our coach or QB was, given that we were changing every ten games or so...

[nexxrev]

I just could not stand Norv's play calling. 3rd and long.......its another draw. so predictable!
:seahawksu :seahawksu :seahawksu

[Fish434]

For me it was Norv and Deion, both former Dallas Cowboys!

Hiring them was tantamount to saying that rivalries are just marketing bull. Those hirings were a slap in the face of true Redskins fans. Disgraceful time. I don't think I can ever forgive the Danny for that, even though he brought back GIBBS.

Whoa... Danny did not hire Norv, but inherited him.

Personally, I love Danny. He's my dream come true: Make a zillion dollars, buy the Redskins.

[Novaskin]

You know our running game was decent with Terry Allen and Stephen Davis, but going through ALL THOSE QUARTERBACKS was a really hard! They all pretty much sucked but Brad.

[gimpy007]

My old roommate who is a Cowgirls fan. It was rough. But this year I have rubbed it in TWICE!

[dcoles11]

The worst part was coming to the realization that there were no more games on the scheduel that I could mark as "well we should win that game."

We became one of the teams that people saw on their scheduel as an easy win.

[Seabee1973]

For me it was Norv and Deion, both former Dallas Cowboys!

Hiring them was tantamount to saying that rivalries are just marketing bull. Those hirings were a slap in the face of true Redskins fans. Disgraceful time. I don't think I can ever forgive the Danny for that, even though he brought back GIBBS.


Danny did not hire Norv though

[Larry]

Sitting in a sports bar, watching the Skins with a 10 point lead at the start of the 4th, and knowing that, deep down, I think we're going to blow it.

My biggest Norv memory was a game @ Detroit. A team that we hadn't lost to in around 50 years.

At the half, the Skins are up 13-3. Steven Davis has about 20 carries and 125 yards. (5.5 average).

In the 3rd Q, Steven touches the ball once, for 5 yards. Lions have several good drives, but can't get into the end zone. Score now Skins 16-9.

In the 4th, Davis touches the ball twice, for 10 yards. Lions have several good drives, but can't get into the end zone. Skins lose, 16-18.

In those days, redskins.com had an "Ask Norv" function where you could e-mail Coach, and he'd pick a question and answer it on his TV show. My question was: "How can you average 5.5 yards per carry, lead by 10 at halftime, lead by 7 after 3, and lose to a team that didn't score a single touchdown?"

-----

My secong "best" Norv memory was that, once, we had won 5 of our last 6 against the Super Bowl Champion Cowboys, but had lost our last 3 in a row to league joke Tampa Bay. One trivia question I wanted an answer to, back then, was "Has any team ever made the playoffs after having a losing season against Tampa Bay?"

[johnny99]

The affliction of genius! There was always some genius running the offense and/or defense; they never just went out and played disciplined football!

The constant love of Norv (a nice guy by all accounts) by the media. If I heard the “he has a great football mind” one more time!

[Seabee1973]

The Ravens winning a Super Bowl so soon after coming into the league...


Actually technically they were a new team But they were the old cleveland browns so they still had all the players when they moved they just changed cities for whats its worth.

[AzSkinsFan63]

The Media...I still do!

[Novaskin]

I went to that opener at Fedex back in 2000 against Dallas. We were up 35-14 at halftime and the scumbag cowgirl fans were quiet as a millpond and then BAM! we lose in OT on a bomb from Troy Aikman to Joey Galloway! Uggh, the shame listening to those jerks walking out of the stadium!:dallasuck

Great one Norv! Love the memories!:mad: :rolleyes:

[MONTEY]

I went to that opener at Fedex back in 2000 against Dallas. We were up 35-14 at halftime and the scumbag cowgirl fans were quiet as a millpond and then BAM! we lose in OT on a bomb from Troy Aikman to Joey Galloway! Uggh, the shame listening to those jerks walking out of the stadium!:dallasuck

Great one Norv! Love the memories!:mad: :rolleyes:

That was really a hard time to be a Skins fan. That just about killed me. It started a major change with how I felt about those Cowturd fans. And losing in triple overtime to Esiason and those Cardinals. They had our number back then, and It used to drive me insane with anger. :helmet:

[Pourdanesh]

The Westbrook helmet-toss embodies that period for me. A team w/ "potential" (i.e. the chance to kick a game winning fg in OT) blowing it and settling for mediocrity (a tie) ...

[raperry2]

Deion Sanders. And I remember the 1997 tie very well somehow even though I was 10. I think I cried. :laugh:

[jauburn]

I too HATED how the media called Norv a "great offensive mind" and how Tony Kornhusker was "in the tank" for Norv (whatever the hell that means), when all I saw in Norv was a SNIVELING PIMPLYFACED PUNK WHO LOOKED LIKE HE WANTED TO PICK A FIGHT WITH THE MEDIA AFTER EACH LOSS AND WOULD LOSE THE FIGHT AND GO HOME CRYING TO HIS MAMMA.

I hated having Norv Turner as a coach.

Steve Spurrier sucked, too.

[jauburn]

oh, and Michael Westbrook was a self-absorbed bumb who wouldn't get a job as a waterboy on a Gibbs team.

How did we end up with so many CLOWNS on the once-proud, workmanlike Redskins, home of Riggins and the Hogs?

[Jimbo]

There WAS NO gap between Gibbs v1.0 and Gibbs v2.0

It was ALL a bad dream, it never happened, it was a figment of your imagination, it was a black hole, it was......

[Thiebear]

I hated that it was measured in years....
Lack of consistency of coaches...

[GrimReefa]

This is easy. Losing to Dallas...again...and again...and again...

Whether they were being blown out or giving up heartbreaking comebacks, there was nothing worse than losing to the Cowboys over and over and over again.

It was like a freakin' nightmare every time those two teams took the field...

[Martini]

The coaching carosel, especially Norv and Spurrier.

HTTR

[SkinsFTW]

Norv Turner was the biggest mistake and the worst nightmare.

It was obvious to me in 95 or 96 that this guy was no Joe Gibbs and wasn't going to turn the team around. The worst thing was listening to him explain away losses after the game was over. When the team started 7-1 in 1996 I was talking all kinds of **** to Eagles fans and Cowboys fans only to see the team lose 6 of 8 and getting swept by the CARDINALS, I knew it was over then.

Want to get depressed or have a good laugh at Norv? Read some of this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/redskins/longterm/1998/98recap.htm

Just a pathetic man, and then what Green says. I can't believe Green stayed around for 7 years of this guy.

"Coach Norv Turner basically called some of his players quitters during tirades at halftime and following the game. His face was red with anger during a postgame news conference in which he said the Redskins' offense is "totally inept" and vowed that changes are on the way.

"That's as poor a performance as I can say I've ever been involved with," said Turner, who is in his fifth season as the Redskins' head coach and has been coaching on the college or pro level since 1975.

He praised several veteran players by name, and said the defense "has a chance" to be "decent."

Of the offense, Turner's area of responsibility when he was an assistant coach, he said: "We can't snap two plays together in a row and not jump offsides. When we do get the ball snapped properly and a guy's open, we can't get him the ball. When we get him the ball, he doesn't catch it. We've got guys going the wrong way. We're just not capable of performing offensively right now."

"We are rock bottom. I'm at a loss for words for this," said Green, a member of Washington's Super Bowl championship teams in 1987 and 1991. "... This is the lowest. Sitting on the sideline, it just hit me. Win, lose or draw, that's us, and I'm a part of that. I began to ponder it on the sideline and I got really emotional. It's an accumulation of things. I've never felt like this. I don't know why. I've lost before. [But] I'm only human."

The Redskins have a bye next week. "I could use three byes," Green said. "If we could buy someone else's bye, I'd take it."

With the gap between games, they are scheduled to practice on only two of the next seven days. "I thought about where we are hard, and one of the things that might be good for some of these guys is to get away from it," Turner said.

He also said there probably will be some lineup changes before the Redskins return for a game Nov. 1 against the New York Giants at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium.

"We're going to come in Wednesday [for the team's next practice] and find the guys that really want to compete," Turner said, "the guys that ... can learn something. ... The guys that really want to compete – get them on the field and let them play.

"We have a lot of guys that aren't playing at a very high level. So you've got to do something."

[hail2skins]

1996: starting 7-1 and losing to Arizona twice, including allowing Boomer Esiason to pass for 500+ yards, and then the Romeo Bandison gaffe in the rematch which kept us out of the playoffs and rendered the RFK finals against Dallas completely meaningless

1997: starting 3-1 and then having to watch this crew slog through losses in terrible weather at FedEx against dregs like the Ravens and Rams, and then endure that tie against the Giants

[Larry]

The joke columns saying that Emmit Smith's rushing records should have asterisks next to them, because he was unfairly helped by getting to play Washington twice every year.

[armstrong001]

Bringing in joke QB's like Tony Banks, Jeff Hoffsetetler, and Jeff "the Savior" George, while driving out good QB's like Brad Johnson and Trent Green who go on to have better seasons after they leave.

[IHOPSkins]

When Snyder kept Norv....I thought

We are Never going to have a coach like Gibbs again.

Its cool to be wrong sometimes!

[dfbovey]

What I hated most is all the big name free agents that were brought in, with no return on the investment. Basicly robbing the franchise.

[iwasdoinit]

Although the whole Spurrier era was a travesty, a particular play comes to mind. Against the Cowboys, the Skins make a great stand at the goal line but a dope by the name of Jeremiah Trotter gets called for "false cadence," giving Dallas a first and goal. I don't know if I recall that happening to any other team in recent memory. Of course Dallas scored and won. Way too many bonehead plays that have lately diminished dramatically. I wonder why.

[fight_on_til_you_have_won]

What I hated the most was losing to other crappy teams. Particularly the MNF game against Dallas in 2001 -- the Skins and Dallas were both 0-4, and Dallas won the game 9-7. :doh:

[smoothvirus]

I hated how we never had heart. I had to walk out of FedEx so many times after a loss just depressed about how our team never had any heart.

I felt the same way. I hated watching a game and when the Skins got down by 10-14 points, I knew the game was over because they were going to give up at that point.

That and Norvy's habit of NEVER going for it on 4th and 1. I got so mad I wanted to reach throught the TV and personally throttle him. :mad:

[pez]

The so-called fans who dropped their team during the "Great Depression" and are now returning at the break of dawn..

[MLSKINS]

I just hated how many times we gave up them games.
But the worst moment was opening day 1999 or 98 when we had Dallas by 21 it was 42-21 and they came all the way back and Dag on Rocket Ismail smoke Chirs Dishman in OT and we lost 48-21. :doh: :doh: :doh: :doh:

But that 35-7 victory almost made the pain go away. A super bowl victory will make me forget every thing that happen.

[smoothvirus]

I had almost repressed this memory, but the 2003 season makes me feel cold inside.

I remember how excited my buddies got when we hired Spurrier, I remember one of them said "It's like Lou Holtz came to coach in the NFL!" As soon as he said that I started to get nervous about this "experiment" of Dan Snyder's. I replied "uhm, Lou Holtz did coach in the NFL, and it didn't work."

So the 2002 season didn't go well, but hey, it was a rebuilding year. That summer I talked a bunch of smack at the office how we were going to do well in 2003 and the Fun n' Gun would finally work.

Of course, all our opponents had to do was blitz the hell out of the Fun n' Gun and it all falls apart.

Then came the slow, numbing horror as around week 11 I came to realize that Spurrier was completely in over his head. He was utterly hopeless. I'll never forget that time he looked up at the sky and blew a big rasberry - and then they replayed the rasberry.. in slow motion. It was awful. We were the joke of the entire league. The Cowboys fans in the office guffawed for WEEKS.

ewww... I can't stand even thinking about it! Begone, 2003!!!! :doh:

Postscript:

I should add that one fateful morning in January, I was half asleep before getting in the shower when I overheard someone on the TV said something like "Joe Gibbs.. returning to the Redskins..." I was INSTANTLY wide awake and leapt out of bed screaming "WHAAT!!!"

The next day at work I predicted that the Skins would go 8-8 in 2004 and 10-6 in 2005, and make the playoffs in 2005. At least I was half right!!! :cheers:

[MarquisSmith]

For me it was Snyder ruining the team in 2000. Bidding against himself to sign Deion. Turning down a 3rd round pick for Skip Hicks. Not getting any depth at WR or OL, the two places we needed it. Getting Bruce Smith for too much money but losing ND Kalu, who at that point was better and way cheaper. Getting a used up Mark Carrier. Firing Norv when we still had a chance at the playoffs. Midseason coaching changes NEVER work. And our cap has been screwed up ever since.

It was also fun watching two ex-Redskin QBs in the Bucs-Raiders Super Bowl. It was nice to see Stephen Davis lead his team to the Super Bowl the year after we dropped him--and to replace him with Portis we needed to pay top dollar AND give up a player and a pick.

[jauburn]

The fight between Stephen Davis and Michael Westbrook.

What a nadir.

[JGRFan]

The 2000 season was the most dissapointing year ever.
- Aneas Williams 103 yard fumble return as S.Davis was about to walk in the endzone.
- Sumari Rolle interception for a TD that extended about 15 sec after the clock expired.
- Eddie Murry thudding a field goal off the left upright at home in a 9-7 Gmen loss.

2003 - Hasselbak having a 0.0 QB rating at home vs Dallas.

[50GutCheck]

I hated just about every Monday from the beginning of September to the end of December...............................

[Skinsfan1311]

...other than the losing? The lack of heart just killed me...that, coupled with Dallas' success, just killed me....

[DieHard86]

Second to last week of the season, 1996. Skins were 8-6, up by 1 or 2 late in the game in Arizona. The defensive end got a hold of the Cardinals quarterback on a fourth down blitz started to swing him around, but did so by the quarterback's face mask. 15 yard penalty, field goal, Redskins lose. The Redskins beat Dallas the next week, but missed the playoffs on tiebreakers. Misery.

[neongel]

I hated that I forgot how much fun the playoffs could be.

[LOUDSKINS]

losing to dallas

[SkinsBry]

Norval. I just couldn't grasp the hiring of a Dallas Cowpuke. It felt so wrong and I was in a total state of confusion. It was like I was sent to a parallel universe where everything was backwards.

Up was down and down was up. The sky was green and the grass was blue. Men were feminine and chicks had dix.

Well, maybe not everything is back to normal, but Ol' Coach Gibbs got the Redskins back to a competitive team again and that brings a smile to my face.