Maybe. Or maybe not. Gibbs could pull a Dick Vermeil and come back just as strong — if not stronger — than before.

All I can say is, no matter how much I love Bill Parcells, I'm glad he never returned to coach the Giants. Just leave that little happy piece of NJ sports history alone. It was a great ride, but it's done and I prefer that The Tuna doesn't try to "recapture the magic" in the Meadowlands [that stint with the Jets doesn't count; they're renters, not homeowners].

I wish Joe Gibbs luck. But not too much. I wish him, say, five pretty good 9-7 seasons, with two of those annual losses delivered by a much improved and Super Bowl-bound Giants team.

A Game for Geezers

Gibbs' return also makes me wonder why professional sports teams tend to recycle head coaches, even ones who were fired for doing a bad job. My Giants just hired Tom Coughlin to replace fired coach Jim Fassel. Coughlin was canned by the Jacksonville Jaguars after the 2002 season, following three consecutive losing seasons. Fassel was fired by the Giants with two games to go in the season. He was immediately considered a leading candidate for the Arizona Cardinals head coaching job, although that job went to Dennis Green, who was fired from the Minnesota Vikings two years ago. He also interviewed for the 'Skins job.

Former 'Skins quarterback Joe Theismann says "Coach Gibbs brings a couple of things to the Redskins." What are those, Joe? Reading glasses and a soon-to-be broken hip? What's with all the old guys getting recycled in the NFL? Shouldn't they be in a "community" somewhere playing cribbage and sharing ear hair stories?

Are there no decent head coaching candidates in the assistant coach/head coordinator pool? Where are the young guys? [Or gals! Heh.] Where are the black coaching candidates? [Dennis Green, the Arizona coach, is black.] In the management ranks, the NFL is juuuuuust a tad stodgy and the fans are going to notice one of these days. Stodgy leadership will lead to boring teams.

NFL teams that are perennially in the crapper, teams like the Arizona Cardinals, should forget about "experienced" coaches. They should bring in some new, younger coaching blood and shake things up a bit. They have nothing to lose except perhaps the record for the number of consecutive losing seasons. Maybe those teams will still lose, but at least they'll be more fun to watch.

And so will their coaches.