Blending X’s, O’s and IQs : Redskins: Unbeaten team has improved this season because it has more smart players, Gibbs says.

A consistent success story for the past 10 years, the undefeated Washington Redskins may be on the road to another Super Bowl.

After winning their first seven games this season, the Redskins, their opponents report, are better than ever.

How could that be when their coach, Joe Gibbs, a two-time Super Bowl champion, has launched another time-consuming career in auto racing?

“To do your best in any field, I think you have to be excited about life in general, life as a whole,” Gibbs said the other day after practice at Redskin Park.

“Racing is tremendously stimulating. It makes me feel good about my life, and I think that the excitement I feel has helped me do everything better this year, in and out of football.”

As the new leader of a NASCAR racing team for next season, Gibbs, who is in his 11th season as the leader of the Redskins, said he is “sort of stonewalling the staleness that (Raider owner) Al Davis talked about” when Davis suggested that 10 years are enough for any coach.

Question: Is that why you went into racing?

Gibbs: Well, I went into it because the opportunity came along. I could grab it, or let it go, and I grabbed it. Now, later, I can see that racing is changing and helping my life.

Q: And the Redskins?

A: Possibly.

Q: But why racing?

A: When I was growing up in California 35 years ago, I had two dreams. I wanted to be an NFL coach, and I wanted to drive a race car. When I turned 50 (last year), I felt my chances as an Indianapolis driver slipping away. Then I found that I could still live the dream another way.

Q: The Redskins have been a slow starter throughout your career in Washington, until this year, when they’ve suddenly won every game. Are they doing it without you while you dream about Daytona?

A: That I wish. No, I’m up to my ears in football again this year. And I love every minute of it. There’s no thrill like winning.

Q: Are you still sleeping next to a movie projector in your office?

A: Three nights a week.

Q: What else accounts for the Redskins’ fast start?

A: I’d say that a lot of it is the kind of personnel we have. We’ve been going after a slightly different type of player in recent years. You need more intelligent players to win today, and I think we have a pretty smart team.

Q: How did that come about?

A: First, you set a goal, and then you try to reach it. Ten years ago, we went for players with character and ability. Character is still first, of course, but now our goal is character, intelligence and ability.

Q: Why the change?

A: You realize after a while that your offense is better if every player has a thorough understanding of your whole concept. The same goes for defense, and the smarter a player is, the easier to grab the concept. Another thing, the smarter they are, the less likely to get into trouble--I mean off-the-field trouble as well as on. Another reason is the new (roster limit).

Q: The 45-man limit?

A: No, the 80-man training camp (limit). In the days when you could bring in 100 players or more, you could afford to keep a few good prospects around for a year or so until they learned the (system). Today, they’ve got to be intelligent enough to step right in.

Q: How do you turn up that sort of player?

A: We’ve developed our own IQ tests. We use the (NFL) tests, too, but if it’s a close call, we rely on our own. We also work them out on the field, not so much for their ability as to see how long it takes to pick things up. You can’t play in the NFL, of course, under a certain level of size and playing ability, but size and ability aren’t anywhere near enough.

Q: Do man-in-motion plays require unusual intelligence? The Redskins use more shifting and motion than any other team.

A: The smarter you are, the better you do anything like that. We don’t shift players around just to see them trot back and forth. There’s a definite purpose. Suppose we want to influence a certain (linebacker) to lean a certain way. When we have players who fully understand the purpose, the more likely they are to do it exactly right.

Q: Most coaches talk more about the necessity for repetition on the practice field than about the advantages of motion.

A: Nothing’s more important than (repetition). The main reason you have football practice every day is to run the same little handful of plays over and over and over. It’s called polishing. The problem is that your (opponents) get to know your plays as well as you do. It’s the biggest problem you have.

Q: And you have found that disguising plays with motion is the best solution to the problem.

A: Yes, we think that shifting and motion are (the best) way to disguise your (intentions). So we shift several players from place to place on every play, and put one of them in motion. Defensive football is a game of keys. Seeing one or two offensive players in this (position) or that can give the defense a key to what play is coming. We shift our players back and forth to scramble the keys--to confuse defensive recognition.

Q: How much does this particular strategy have to do with your success?

A: I don’t think that consistency in pro football goes to the coach. It goes to the quality of the organization. Consistency means three things, starting with year-after-year player (acquisition). Second, you have to let the coach decide which players to keep every year. The third thing is (a club) owner who understands all that, and who will pay to (implement) the coach’s decisions.

Q: Are you saying that, as a coach, you don’t participate in the draft yourself?

A: I’m consulted, of course, but a pro club doesn’t rise or fall on the coach’s draft picks. It rises or falls on whether the coach is allowed an absolute free hand to keep the players he wants--regardless of cost or anything else. Which means that it rises or falls on the understanding of the owner.

Q: In Washington, does (owner) Jack Kent Cooke approve of whatever you want to do?

A: He’s approved everything, without exception, after he has been fully briefed. He wants to know, and I think he’s entitled to know, every detail of our (decisions). The thing that’s made (Cooke) successful in basketball and football both is that he has a full understanding of what it takes to succeed.