PRO FOOTBALL : With Gibbs, Rypien, Look for Redskins Again Next Season

For two reasons in particular, the Washington Redskins have a better chance to keep winning Super Bowls in the 1990s than their predecessors had in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s:

--Washington Coach Joe Gibbs, 52, has a system in place that promotes longevity. He and his people are so organized that they are winning almost effortlessly, as they did Sunday, when they overwhelmed the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVI, 37-24.

--Washington quarterback Mark Rypien, 29, who appeared to be a bust as recently as six months ago, has played about as well this season as any quarterback ever, and he looks as if he could keep doing it for another five or 10 years.

“The key for us in (Sunday’s) game is that Rypien got knocked around and came back to make the big plays,” Gibbs said Monday.

Quarterbacks Dan Marino, Joe Namath and Joe Montana have all shown more brilliance than Rypien probably will ever show. They are all geniuses of a sort, and Rypien is no genius.

But few quarterbacks have projected Rypien’s substance and stability, and fewer still have displayed his long-ball touch.

“My objective is to come back and put together four or five years of consistency,” he said Monday.

That could happen.

A Redskin future: As defending champions in the last quarter of a century, most NFL teams couldn’t cut it. And the Redskins haven’t been an exception.

Their history under Gibbs is that they win the Super Bowl every four or five years--they won it with their ‘82, ’87 and ’91 teams--and then tail off.

Gibbs’ ‘83 players were humiliated by the Raiders, 38-9, in Super Bowl XVIII. His ’88 team fell to 7-9.

His ’91 champions have two advantages that earlier Redskins lacked:

--The winning quarterbacks in ’82 and ‘87, Joe Theismann and Doug Williams, were aging, beaten up and near retirement, unlike Rypien, whose best football is still ahead.

If Gibbs’ winning three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks says something for his coaching, it also speaks to the lack of continuity he has put up with at his most important position.

--Gibbs and his coaches are more experienced. They learned something when they were clobbered by the Raiders. After some 10 years, they have learned more.

This is the most experienced bunch in the NFL, as well as the most consistently successful. If you’re a pro coach elsewhere, you can’t look to the future with a great deal of hope.

The difference: The Gibbs system will be something to reckon with as long as he’s in the league.

Not that it’s necessarily for everybody. The run-and-shoot, as operated by Detroit and Houston, and the Buffalo no-huddle, when it’s working, are potentially more lethal. If Gibbs were just coming into football, he might well change styles.

“I’m very much taken with the run-and-shoot,” he said. “There really isn’t any way to stop a four-wide (-receiver), one-back offense.”

Over the last 11 years, however, Gibbs has won more NFL games than any other coach. And he has invested so much energy in mastering his own one-back system--which alternates three or four wide receivers with three or four tight ends--that he won’t leave it now.

It’s a beautiful system, particularly with players as competent as Art Monk, Earnest Byner and Rypien.

One mark of a good offense is the way it gets its receivers in the clear. The real difference between Washington and Buffalo was that Rypien’s receivers were almost always open, and Jim Kelly’s almost never were. The sophistication of the Buffalo offense simply didn’t match the sophistication of that of the Redskins.

Injury luck: This was a season when the Redskins upheld one Super Bowl tradition, as stated by former coach Sid Gillman: “The NFL champion is always the healthiest good team.”

From their first game to the 19th, the Redskins started the same offensive and defensive players, even at quarterback.

In part, this was because of Gibbs’ coaching. The offensive line was taught that a sack is unacceptable. Rypien was taught how to avoid punishment by dispensing the ball quickly.

In part, it was done in training, where nothing is hit or miss at Redskin Park.

“If I got hurt, it wasn’t going to be because of a lack of conscientious training,” Rypien said.

And in large part, it was because of good luck.

Buffalo Coach Marv Levy didn’t have that. His best defensive player--the league’s best--Bruce Smith never recovered from off-season knee surgery. Nose tackle Jeff Wright was coming offinjury.

Buffalo strong safety Leonard Smith developed a knee infection during the week and couldn’t play.

And there was more. Levy’s second-best linebacker, Shane Conlan, went out in the first quarter and couldn’t come back.

Let’s say the better team won. Let’s also say it had some luck.

Clark to George to Richie: Defensive coordinator Richie Petitbon has been at Redskin Park longer than Gibbs has. When Gibbs was appointed 11 years ago, one of the first things he did was promote Petitbon, who became a Redskin assistant 18 years ago.

Theoretically, Gibbs is in charge of everything. In reality, Petitbon is in charge of half of it. When Gibbs is sleeping in his office three nights a week, he isn’t working on defense. Sometimes from week to week, he doesn’t even think about it.

And Petitbon’s defense made this another lopsided Super Bowl.

It’s a defense that began long ago when conceived by Chicago Bear assistant coach Clark Shaughnessy, who taught it to George Allen, who improved on it in Los Angeles and Washington, then taught it to his favorite player, Petitbon, who is still improving on it.

The basic idea is, first, to keep constant pressure on the quarterback and, second, to outnumber the offense at the point of attack.

That requires knowing where the point of attack is going to be, and that requires the hours of study and film review that have been the life of Shaughnessy, Allen and Petitbon.

This time, the Bills’ no-huddle presented a new challenge. Typically, the Redskins made a drawing board of their playing field, timing no-huddle plays and researching the exact number of seconds they would have to get their specialists in between snaps.

They needed that because situation substitution is the heart of the Shaughnessy-Allen-Petitbon system.

On their improvised no-huddle drawing board, Petitbon enlisted Gibbs to play referee, spotting the ball.

Predictably, there was payoff after payoff Sunday, the most memorable, perhaps, in the second quarter, when the Bills still had a chance to win. On second and two, they sent Thurman Thomas hurtling full speed into the hole where Petitbon sent linebacker Andre Collins hurtling on a full-speed blitz.

On third and five, Kelly had to pass, and Petitbon stopped that, too, forcing a punt.

It takes both playing and coaching talent to get to the Super Bowl, and, of the two, it seems, coaching usually wins it.