PLAYER RANKINGS • Top 75 Overall Players • QBs | RBs | WRs | TEs | K | Def. • 2004 Experts League Draft  FANTASY INSIDERS • Sabino: Player Value Ranking • King: 30 Things you need to know • Sabino: Top 10 Draft Day tips • Bouyelas: To start or not to start? • Quintong: Players to avoid in your draft • Quintong: Rookie watch • Quintong: Draft sleepers • Quintong: Familiar faces in new places • Quintong: Running back races to keep an eye on  FANTASY GAMES Sign Up Today! Special offer for SI Subscribers: Get 50% off the price of all fantasy football games on SI.com. • Football Commissioner$99.95 Run your league, your way! ($49.97 for SI subscribers) • Football Salary Cap Challenge $9.95 Win a trip to the SI Swimsuit Issue Launch Party ($4.97 for SI subscribers) • Fantasy Football $19.95 or $39.95 for 3 teams Draft a team and dominate your league ($9.97 for SI subscribers, $19.97 for 3 teams) • Beat the Experts FREE! Compete against your friends, SI experts and celebrities in this pro football pickoff

How long has Joe Gibbs been gone? Think of it this way:

• When Gibbs last coached a meaningful game in the NFL -- Washington's Jan. 9, 1993, NFC divisional round playoff loss at San Francisco -- Green Bay's Brett Favre was 13 starts into his current 189-game NFL record consecutive starting streak.

• When Gibbs quit, the Jaguars, Panthers, Ravens, Texans and Titans didn't even exist, and the notion of an expansion team in Cleveland was beyond comprehension. The Raiders and Rams were still in Los Angeles, and Houston's Oilers were a playoff perennial. St. Louis and Oakland? Well, they each had baseball season to look forward to.

• The Bucs were 10 years into their league-record 12-year streak of double-digit loss seasons, and still five years shy of returning to the playoffs under Tony Dungy, then a Minnesota defensive coordinator.

• John Elway didn't own a ring; O.J. wasn't famous for anything other than football, running through airports and bad acting; Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones were still getting along; the free-agent era hadn't yet begun; the Bengals weren't known as the Bungles yet; Bill Parcells was about to make a comeback -- in New England; and, of course, Al Davis was promising that the greatness of the Raiders was still ahead.

• Jon Gruden was a first-year Packers assistant dubbed "Driving Miss Daisy'' by Green Bay players, because he had the job of chauffeuring head coach Mike Holmgren to and from practice. Deion Sanders was fresh off playing in both a Falcons game and a Braves playoff game on the same day, and Bernie Kosar was still a Cleveland institution. For that matter, ditto for Art Modell.

• Pittsburgh's Bill Cowher is the only head coach still in the same place as Gibbs left him, although Bill Belichick, Dennis Green, Marty Schottenheimer and Holmgren have endured, albeit with at least one move since January 1993. Names such as Shula, Knox, Reeves, Levy, Flores, Seifert, and Johnson dominated the coaching ranks at the time, and Mike Ditka was about to close out his Bears tenure.

• No quarterback other than Favre is still on duty for the same team, but there are eight other passers who continue to draw an NFL check: Vinny Testaverde, Rich Gannon, Chris Chandler, Rodney Peete, Tommy Maddox, Jeff Blake, Brad Johnson and Ty Detmer. Doug Flutie was in his CFL stage, at the outpost called Calgary.

• RFK Stadium, where Gibbs' Redskins had their glory years, no longer houses the team. Chicago's Soldier Field had a near-total makeover, and gone are Mile High, Cleveland's Municipal Stadium, the Vet in Philly, Three Rivers in Pittsburgh, and the Astrodome in Houston, among others familiar venues.

That's a lot of change in 11 years, but that's why they say NFL stands for "Not For Long.'' When Gibbs opens his second Redskins era this week at FedEx Field against Tampa Bay, he'll actually be trying to ignore a little bit of history.

The last two big-name head coaches who returned with great fanfare to lead their old teams didn't exactly re-create Camelot. Bud Grant went 7-9 with the 1985 Vikings, then retired for good. Chuck Knox presided over the Rams' last three seasons in L.A., going 6-10, 5-11 and 4-12, but was not asked to accompany the team to St. Louis.

Can Gibbs go home again and win, or did he really just come back for the bucks, as some assume? We start finding out Sunday against the Bucs.

Around the league ...

I don't have any scientific data to back up my gut, but it sure seemed like defenses were more willing than ever to blitz early and often in preseason games this year. Isn't that right, Michael Vick?

The Redskins' Lavar Arrington forces the Falcons' Michael Vick to fumble in preseason action. AP

Vick was limited to just five snaps and three pass attempts the other night against Washington, because the Redskins kept sending the house every time he dropped back in the pocket. Washington assistant head coach/defense Gregg Williams called a cornerback blitz on Vick's first play, which wound up producing a lob-ball interception, and linebacker LaVar Arrington also hit Vick twice, the second time forcing a fumble that was returned 23 yards for a touchdown by Antonio Pierce.

Seeing his team's season flash before his eyes, Falcons rookie head coach Jim Mora yanked Vick after just three series and less than a quarter of work in the 27-0 loss to Washington.

And it wasn't just the Redskins who were blitz happy this preseason. I saw teams such as Carolina and Kansas City sending people after both Kurt Warner and Eli Manning of the Giants, and that Donovan McNabb to Terrell Owens 81-yard touchdown bomb two weeks back was in part attributable to the Ravens sending Ed Reed on a safety blitz, leaving cornerback Gary Baxter in single coverage.

Once upon a time, teams had what amounted to a gentlemen's agreement not to get too fancy or tricky in preseason games. Especially in the fourth and final preseason game, when everyone is trying to avoid injuries at all cost. It wasn't exactly Pro Bowl rules, but blitzing wasn't all that frequent.

Those days appear to be long gone.

• It's kind of amusing when you realize that while there were the usual number of players lost to injury this preseason, there was nowhere near the hue and cry there was last year to cut the four-game exhibition schedule in half. Why? Because there weren't any long-term injuries to high-profile starting quarterbacks such as Vick and the Jets' Chad Pennington this time around. The league didn't lose one single glamour child.

It's a shame when players like Redskins offensive tackle Jon Jansen, Eagles running back Correll Buckhalter and Denver running back Mike Anderson are lost for the season in August. But no one gets up in arms until the No. 1 quarterbacks start dropping. And that isn't going to change any time soon.

• If you're a fearful flyer, you've got to love the Ravens schedule. Baltimore will travel a league-low 4,650 miles this season, which is almost half as little as the 31st ranked team, Pittsburgh (8,534). The Ravens already played preseason games at the Eagles and Giants, and in the regular season they'll have quickie trips to Cleveland, Cincinnati, Washington, Philly again, the Jets, New England and Pittsburgh.

The furthest west that Baltimore has to venture is to Indianapolis in December. And even then the Ravens won't even have to reset their watches, because most of the Hoosier state will be on the same schedule as the Eastern time zone, given that Indianapolis doesn't take part in daylight savings.

There's a six-week span in the middle of the Ravens schedule where they won't even have to board a plane. Starting in Week 5, Baltimore is home against Kansas City, at Washington (a bus ride), has a bye, home against Buffalo, at Philadelphia (a train ride) and home against Cleveland.

Of course, Ravens running back Jamal Lewis is scheduled to make one more trip than the rest of his teammates. He has to fly to Atlanta on Nov. 1 for the start of his federal drug conspiracy trial.

• Who knows if Vegas has set the line on such a bet, but you've got to figure that San Francisco, minus both Jeff Garcia and Terrell Owens this year, could be in jeopardy of seeing its NFL record 418-game scoring streak snapped. The 49ers haven't been shutout in the regular season since Oct. 9, 1977, when visiting Atlanta laid a 7-0 whipping on quarterback Jim Plunkett and Co.

San Francisco's streak had a fairly close call last year, when the 49ers lost 35-7 at Minnesota, with a fourth-quarter touchdown pass from Tim Rattay to Tai Streets getting them off the schneid. The 49ers opening-day opponent? They're home against Atlanta, the same team that blanked them not quite 27 years ago.

• And finally, from the we're-not-making-this-up-department, the NFL this preseason noted that "Are You Ready for Some Football?'' ditty that Hank Williams Jr. belts out at the beginning of every Monday Night Football telecast has been voted the No. 2 moment in country music history, according to Country Music Television.

No. 1, if you're wondering, was Alan Jackson's 9/11-inspired "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning.''

I don't know about you, but I'm sort of glad Johnny Cash was spared the indignity of it all.

Don Banks covers pro football for SI.com.