Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs announced his retirement yesterday, bringing to an end an unsuccessful four-year coda to his Hall-of-Fame coaching career.

Gibbs went 31–36 as the Redskins’ coach from 2004 to 2007, a mediocre four-year run that is in sharp contrast to the 140–65 record he had in his previous 12 years leading the team. And yet Gibbs did far too much in his first stint as a coach for four seasons to tarnish his legacy.

Gibbs became the Redskins coach in 1981 and led the team to four Super Bowls, winning three of them, before retiring after the 1992 season. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1996.

After a long retirement that saw Gibbs focus most of his attention on the NASCAR team he runs, he shocked the football world when he came out of retirement in 2004 and took over a franchise in disarray. The Redskins made the playoffs just once during Gibbs’s 11-year hiatus, and fans in Washington were growing increasingly restless with the team and its owner, Daniel Snyder. By bringing Gibbs back, Snyder made the only move he could make to receive universal praise from Redskins fans.

That universal praise could only go so far, though, and Gibbs struggled to adjust in his first year back in Washington. In 2004, the Redskins went 6–10 under Gibbs, and even in 2005, when they improved to 10–6 and won a playoff game, Gibbs seemed less like a coaching genius than like a grandfatherly figure who could raise spirits in the locker room and motivate players to give it their all. When the Redskins went 5–11 in 2006, it became clear that Gibbs wasn’t the same coach he had been two decades earlier.

And then came the 2007 season, which would prove to be the most trying of Gibbs’s coaching career. On November 26, Redskins safety Sean Taylor was shot in his home. He died the next day, and just five days after that Gibbs had to lead his team on the field against the Buffalo Bills. With eight seconds remaining and the Redskins clinging to a 16–14 lead, the Bills lined up for a 51-yard field goal attempt. Gibbs called a time-out to ice the Bills’ kicker, and then — unaware that he was violating an NFL rule — called a second time-out. That led to a 15-yard penalty, and the Bills’ subsequent 36-yard field goal won the game.

The next day, Gibbs and his players went to Florida for Taylor’s funeral.

And then something extraordinary happened — the Redskins, under Gibbs’s leadership, rallied and won their final four games. The players praised Gibbs for holding them together in the most trying of circumstances, and the team made the playoffs.

But they lost their first postseason game to the Seattle Seahawks, and Gibbs decided that, at age 67, he couldn’t handle another year of the stresses of coaching. Ultimately, the up-and-down 2007 season perfectly encapsulates Gibbs’ second coaching tenure: He deserves great credit for his leadership qualities, but he simply isn’t the brilliant game-day tactician he once was.

The future of the Redskins is murky. Snyder will immediately start working on finding a successor for Gibbs, and everything about Snyder’s history indicates that he’ll want a big-name coach and be willing to pay a big salary to acquire one.

The candidate who would make the biggest splash is former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher, who resigned from the Steelers last year, one year after winning the Super Bowl. Cowher has indicated that he wants to take at least another year off before getting back in the coaching game, but if Snyder offers him $10 million a year, would Cowher turn that kind of money down?

He might, for one simple reason: Snyder may be both the best NFL owner for coaches who want money and the worst NFL owner for coaches who want autonomy. Snyder was mostly deferential to Gibbs, but he makes clear that he didn’t buy the Redskins to delegate; he bought the Redskins because he wants to play an active role in the day-to-day operations of a football team. Many top coaches won’t want to deal with that type of owner.

Other big-name coaches who could be on Snyder’s wish list include USC’s Pete Carroll, who failed in previous jobs with the Jets and New England Patriots but has rehabilitated his coaching career in college, and Brian Billick, who was fired last week as coach of the Baltimore Ravens but has a Super Bowl ring and the instant credibility that comes with it. Both Carroll and Billick seem like long shots, but they would create the kind of buzz around the franchise Snyder desires. Among assistant coaches, the hottest candidate in the NFL right now is the Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator, Jason Garrett, although Garrett, in his first year as a coordinator, is relatively inexperienced. Another possibility is the Arizona Cardinals assistant head coach, Russ Grimm, a former Redskins Pro Bowl offensive lineman who won three Super Bowl rings under Gibbs.

Snyder could also settle on Gregg Williams, who joined the Redskins’ staff as Gibbs’s assistant head coach for defense in 2004. He made Williams the highest-paid assistant in the league because Gibbs thought highly of him, but Williams went 17–31 in his prior experience as a head coach, with the Buffalo Bills, and Snyder would prefer not to turn over his team to a coach with such a subpar record.

Of course, the Redskins have lately become accustomed to subpar records. Gibbs never came close to matching the success he had during his first stint as the Redskins’ coach. He came out of retirement to win a Super Bowl, not to win 31 games in four seasons. But a disappointing final four years can’t tarnish the legacy of his brilliant first 12 years. Gibbs’s three Super Bowl titles will always be remembered, even if his coaching comeback was forgettable.

Mr. Smith is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.