Twenty three years ago, Jack Kent Cooke and the Washington Redskins hired the man who would go down in history as the franchise’s best head coach, Joe Jackson Gibbs. Gibbs would go on to win 154 games in two stints with the team, become the only individual to win three Super Bowls with three different QBs, and eventually be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
As we sit on the cusp of the selection of Washington’s next head coach, I wanted to take a brief trip down memory lane to see how Gibbs’ original hiring in 1981 was received.