'AG' takes DC: Antonio Gibson is unlike anything we've seen

Washington needs an identity? Look no further than this weapon who sits down with Go Long to detail his rise to this moment... one that makes him the perfect player at the perfect time.

Illustration by Brave Buffalo

BROADLANDS, Va. — Welcome, all, to the light at the end of the tunnel. Right here is the sign of hope everyone associated with the Washington Football Team has been longing for.

A franchise forever embroiled in misery is finally exiting the Dark Ages.

Don’t call him a savior. Don’t call him the franchise player. He rattles off three, four, five other names on the roster at the mere suggestion but, of course, we all know the best heroes are reluctant heroes and if anyone can make you care about football in the nation’s capital, it’s him.

It’s the man sitting here with the blinding silver necklace that reads “AG” and “WEAPON.” Even though you might see “The Weapon” promoted on his social channels, it’s “AG” that Antonio Gibson really loves.

That nickname is simple. Smooth. Rolls off the tongue.

If… no… when Gibson sets defenses ablaze, that’s what we’ll all be calling him.

And this scorching July day feels something like a calm before the storm. Gibson chooses Clyde’s Willow Creek Farm to grab lunch, and it’s a classy establishment. The feel here is very old school with portraits of jockeys and horses all over the walls. Conversations at nearby tables are held two notches above a whisper. The waiters are dressed to the nines.

And here’s “AG,” a fluorescent new school beam of hope.

It’s impossible to pigeonhole this running back in the velvet Von Dutch orange trucker hat, two different-colored shoes and spastic “Trippie Redd” t-shirt seemingly pulled straight out of Spencer’s. Gibson’s not even a rabid fan of the rapper — he just thought the shirt was sweet. When it comes to music, he likes everything. Pop, rap, R&B, country. Gibson recently heard Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” and cracked up laughing. That classic instantly made its way to a playlist. So did the Lumineers’ “Angela.” And while explaining how he could never be like Kanye West or any famous rapper constantly “flipping wives and girlfriends” — such a lifestyle never appealed to him — Gibson hears Eminem’s “Stan” hum over the speakers and interrupts himself to say he likes this song, too.

AG cannot be put in a box on the field, either.

There’s not another weapon in the NFL quite like this collegiate wide receiver turned No. 1 running back on a reigning division champ. Nobody in the league brings this perspective to this position and his timing is perfect. The WFT is absolutely starving for a new identity. The WFT is doing everything in its power to drive the entire franchise in a new direction. These last two years alone have seen an unprecedented amount of turmoil with everything getting so bad that owner Dan Snyder essentially pulled all skeletons out of the team’s closet to burn them for good.

A quick recap. Try to keep up.

• Jay Gruden is fired. Dwayne Haskins flops. Bruce Allen’s decade as GM finally ends. Four of Snyder’s most trusted employees with a combined 55 years of experience leave.

• Ron Rivera is hired. The “Redskins” are no more. The franchise’s three minority investors reportedly are sick of Snyder and want to sell.

• An explosive Washington Post story drops with 15 women alleging sexual harassment and verbal abuse. The WFT hires attorney Beth Wilkinson to investigate.

• Snyder makes a legal claim against a former front-office assistant, saying Mary-Ellen Blair led a campaign against him by taking money to spread negative information.

• Second-rounder Derrius Guice is released after being arrested on domestic violence charges.

• Jason Wright is hired as the first black team president in NFL history. He vows transparency.

• Rivera is diagnosed with cancer and undergoes seven weeks of chemotherapy and proton therapy.

• A lawsuit is settled with team cheerleaders.

• With Rivera in charge of everything, the front office beefs up with Martin Mayhew, Chris Polian and Marty Hurney. Wright announces the team will have a name in 2022.

• As Go Long first reported, Snyder becomes the sole owner of the team with the league’s finance committee approving a $450 million debt waiver to allow Snyder to buy the 40.5 percent of shares owned by those three minority investors.

• Snyder files a suit against Allen, seeking access to his former GM’s texts and documents that he alleges led to negative reporting.

• The NFL fines the WFT $10 million after a year-long investigation into the team’s workplace culture. Tanya Snyder, Dan’s wife, is named the co-CEO and must take over day-to-day operations for the next “several months.”

Such is life in the D.C. swamp, I suppose. A whirlwind of utter chaos.

There’s also one other tiny, little detail to consider: Washington has won two playoff games since 1992. On the field, for a generation, this team has been irrelevent. The calls for Snyder to sell the team only got louder, and louder. But now? That dark cloud hovering over the franchise is dissipating. The organization has real structure. Rivera is one of the best coaches in football. This is the most ferocious defensive line in football. The roster — top to bottom — is strong, deep and let’s not forget that Washington made the eventual Super Bowl Champions sweat to the final horn with Taylor Freakin’ Heinicke.

One problem: They need an identity.

This franchise without a name is begging for a headliner and that headliner is Gibson, a player who’ll force everyone to stop whatever they’re doing in 2021 to replay that juke, that spin, that 70-yard touchdown on their phone. Nobody at his position thinks the game like he does. And the 23-year-old also knows that — like the WFT itself — his darkest days are behind him.

An absent father. A mother in the Middle East. An offseason that challenged his mental health. A cloud over his own life has also dissipated. Now, his “humble” goal this season is to hit 1,200 rushing yards with 12-plus touchdowns and he believes 2,000 total yards from scrimmage is extremely doable considering how much the WFT coaches plan on using him.

Here, he looks down at his tattoo-covered right arm. His “family sleeve.” On the inside of his forearm is his deceased grandmother’s name. She was “the rock” of the family, he says, and a huge Redskins fan. On his right bicep are three black silhouettes. He’s the smaller one in the middle, holding hands with his mother and sister. Above it are the words: “We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.”

He turns his arm over and, in huge swooping cursive, are the names of both adjacent to a lock and a key.

Two roads led Gibson to this point, this takeover in DC.

There’s all of the football, the X’s and O’s he’ll twist in directions we have not seen before. And there’s family, the moments of trauma and hope that molded him.

Football

Long before “AG” and “WEAPON” were dangling around his neck, everyone else gave Antonio Gibson a nickname that was slightly less terrifying: “Lil Tony.”

The name stuck through his entire childhood in Stockbridge, Ga., mainly because Mom made a habit of sticking Gibson in leagues above his age.

Elementary to middle to high school, Lil Tony was the frailest dude darting all over the field and he played everything from quarterback to running back to wide receiver to corner to safety to linebacker. The “Honey Badger” almost inspired him to stick with defense. Karl Joseph, too. One hit particularly? “You can feel it,” he says. “Like, ‘Pow!’ Oh Lord!”

Gibson was always the runt of the lot and his technique? Shoddy.

But Gibson was also athletic… fast… fearless.

Into ninth grade — when his head coach at Eagle’s Landing — deemed him too light to play varsity, Gibson made everyone’s practice a living hell on the scout team. Right then is when he learned not to give a damn about his size. Released on rocket motions and jet sweeps, Gibson pissed off the seniors daily.

“I was humiliating guys at practice,” Gibson says. “I’d make a good play and they’d say, ‘Relax!’ or ‘Calm down!’ and I’d say, ‘Nah! You’re not about to hit me.’”

When he did get tagged, they made him pay but whatever. He learned to shake it off.

And the next year — his year — Gibson broke his ankle two days before his first game in practice. He was devastated. He cried for three days straight, unable to accept the reality that football was taken from him. Of course, even then, Gibson’s raw talent bubbled to the surface. He remembers sprinting through the hallways with his cast on and dunking a basketball with his boot on. A windmill jam, to be exact. By the time he returned as a junior, Gibson only felt stronger. He did his thing on the field and started getting college looks that following summer when he won MVP awards at three different camps.

The bad news? His grades. They scared off everyone. Power 5 schools were interested — Clemson even liked Gibson at safety — but, one by one, he remembers schools saying “We would offer you, but…”

Gibson only had himself to blame. He did not take school seriously.

“Not caring,” he says. “Barely passing.”

Which proved to be ironic, right? From East Central Community College to Memphis to the WFT, Gibson has been used in imaginative ways that demand intelligence. As he learned, success in the public school system does not always equate to success in the real world. Heck, when Gibson returned to Georgia this year, he saw the smartest kid in his graduating class working at a gas station as the attendant. He wanted to tell him that he should be doing so much more in life with a brain like that.

If that classmate’s struggling to apply his skills to the real world, Gibson certainly is not.

On to JUCO, coach Ken Karcher first planted the idea of playing running back in his head. Karcher saw a ripped 6-footer with broad shoulders who’d decimate defenses from the backfield in the pros — and he’d know. He used to back up John Elway on the Denver Broncos. But, eh, Gibson wasn’t interested. Gibson wanted to zero in on receiver, once and for all, and totaled 1,674 all-purpose yards with 16 total touchdowns those two JUCO years.

Off to Memphis he went where he’d need to wait. Again.

Gibson isn’t sure why he barely touched the ball in 2018 but took the year to master Mike Norvell’s dizzying playbook and truly sharpen his receiving skills with assistant John Simon.

Four other future NFL backs were on the roster, so there was no need for Gibson in the backfield, either.

Finally, in 2019, Norvell unleashed Gibson and he was a threat to go the distance any given play. He caught 38 balls for 735 yards (19.3 avg.) with eight touchdowns. And when Patrick Taylor, who spoke to Go Long here, went down? Gibson also started getting the ball in creative ways on the ground, totaling 369 yards and four scores on 33 attempts.

A human cheat code, indeed.

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Norvell describes his scheme as one “built for playmakers,” one that’ll get you in a 1-on-1 situation.

For Gibson, it was a match made in heaven.

“He has extreme speed,” says Norvell, who’s now the head coach at Florida State. “He’s an explosive mover. He’s one of the hardest people I’ve ever been around to tackle. I mean, whether it’s a spin move or his physical size and strength coupled with game-changing speed, it’s just a perfect combination. He’s got a true knack for being able to make the explosive plays happen and operate in small spaces. He is a true game-changer.”

From afar, NFL agent Rodney Williams watched No. 14 in blue light defenses up and saw a potential star… at running back. Williams knew this sport was evolving, quickly, and was convinced that running back would unlock all of that potential greatness in Gibson.

Mano a mano, Gibson will win more than he loses. He needed to play a position where he’d touch the ball 20-plus times a game.

“You could also see his ability to sit there, read, lean in, dip back out,” says Williams, who helped 14-year veteran cornerback Tramon Williams bust onto the scene. “He was also breaking through a lot of tackles. You saw it all. You saw footwork. You saw speed ability. He wasn’t afraid to run between the tackles. The fact that he could catch the ball was the icing on the cake.”

On to the Senior Bowl, Gibson played running back and Washington fell in love. They loved him so much they barely even talked to him all spring — God forbid another team find out — and made him the 66th overall pick. The result? A pure weapon bringing a completely different view of the field. He is no robot trained to the step. Gibson isn’t obsessing over D-Linemen and linebackers, no, he’s looking to the next level.

Where most backs see the potential for seven yards, Gibson sees 70.

“I would say playing receiver is a lot of finesse,” Gibson says. “You’ve got to get open. And when you get into the open field, my mindset is to score. You don’t just fall down. You’ve got to go score. With me being shifty, that comes from receiver. Having to beat man-on-man press. In the open field, having to make moves and get to the end zone.”

Where most backs study film 24/7, Gibson frankly is not. He doesn’t want to be too influenced by anyone else. He cautions all not to try this at home, but it’s the truth: Gibson doesn’t agonize over film because he believes teams adjust a ton week to week anyways.

AG will be AG.

AG isn’t going to react to you, rather you must react to him. And on his way to the end zone, he just may switch the ball to his other hand so he can wave "goodbye.”

As a rookie, Gibson rushed for 795 yards with 11 scores and, according to PFF, forced 37 missed tackles. As he says, other backs “get hit and give up.” He does not. And that mentality came back to bite him. After winging it at running back most of the season, Gibson was just starting to turn a corner when his season ended prematurely with a turf toe suffered while fighting for extra yards.

“It’ll take more than one person to take me down,” Gibson says. “I ain’t going down easy.”

He stops eating his salad for a moment when asked if that mentality — off the field — has roots.

There is something deeper here, beyond his ascension on the field. The real story’s written on that bicep.

His mother made sacrifices. He recalls Annette Williams working three jobs at a time. One job had her checking the energy meters at homes of strangers. When dogs started chasing her out, she started carrying pepper spray just in case she was attacked. Another job was with Southeastrans, a transportation service. And for four years, Annette actually lived overseas. She left her son because this was the best thing for his future. A contracting job in the Middle East opened up and since this was such a dangerous part of the world — “Iraq or Iran,” as Gibson recalls, “a war area” — it paid really well.

Mom knew each penny would go a long way back home so she took the risk. Bomb threats were common.

His sister made sacrifices. When Mom flew to the Middle East, Danielle Moore put her own life on hold to look after Gibson. She was fresh out of college. She had her own career in the works. But Lil Tony was also in fifth grade and needed a parental figure. They bumped heads, grew closer and Gibson subconsciously started calling Moore “Mom.”

It wasn’t easy to say goodbye to his Mom back then. (“I hated it,” he says.) But this all made Gibson who he is today, too.

“I feel like I owe it to them,” Gibson says. “Now, that I’m here, I feel like I’m far from done.”

Of course, there’s one silhouette missing on that tattoo. A father. Ask Gibson where his Dad was through this all and he fidgets in his booth. His mood changes. Clearly, this is a sensitive subject.

“Nah. He wasn’t around much at all.”

To understand who Antonio Gibson is and where Antonio Gibson is going, you must understand the Dad he didn’t have and the Dad he is today.

Family

As Lil Tony morphed into “AG” through high school, his father was two hours away.

Two hours too far, apparently, to support his son.

Gibson remembers looking up into the crowd for his Dad, unable to spot him anywhere.

“He never showed up to the games,” Gibson says. “It affected me. It showed me — now that I have my own kid — what not to do. At the end of the day, that’s all kids really want. They just want you to be there. It hurt. If he wasn’t there, it would’ve been cool. But him saying he was going to show up… and you’d be in the game, looking up there, and after the game, you’d be like, ‘Mom, where is Dad?’”

Mom would cry. Gibson would cry.

It all took a psychological toll.

Dad was an athlete himself. Growing up, he’d regale Gibson with tales of how good he was in baseball and how he “chose the wrong path” and still regrets it to this day. His absence back then still affects Gibson. He even makes a point to say he could’ve been a much better person and player if his Dad, simply, took the time to “pour into me.” It wasn’t until Antonio Gibson became a nationally known name that Dad started reaching out more. (“Typical story,” son says.)

Not that Dad has asked for anything. Rather, he tried to give his side to the story, his reasoning for missing all of those games in high school.

Gibson can’t hold a grudge. If Dad calls, he’ll answer. But that’s the extent of their relationship right now and he says he takes everything with a grain of salt.

Thinking back, there was one high school game Dad attended, but he left at halftime. One college game, too.

That was about it.

“Of course, I’ve got some negative feelings toward him,” Gibson says. “When he asks to come to games, I don’t mind. But at the same time, I won’t go out of my way to buy you a ticket. I won’t go out of my way to have you at a game. If you want to go to a game, you’ve got to show me that you want to. I’m not going out of my way to do it because you didn’t go out of your way to see me when I was younger.”

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That darkness really came into focus this offseason when Gibson became a father himself.

And this experience has shaped who he is more than anyone realizes.

That turf toe didn’t help. He didn’t even work out in cleats until minicamp. But he’s more so talking about his mental health — the exact moment he found out he was going to be a Dad. It all happened “pretty quick.” Gibson admits he hadn’t been with his girlfriend that long and the manic speed at which life was moving? With the urge to help family financially tugging at him? With expectations rising? It all felt way, way, wayyy too fast. He admits he had to ask himself serious questions about his relationship with his girlfriend, his new life, where everything was headed.

The months of March and April felt like a darkness. “Horrible,” he admits.

“This offseason was stressful,” Gibson says. “It was beating me down. She had an idea but she didn’t really understand what I was going through. So, it was tough. It took me a minute to get my thoughts together and try to slow everything down.”

We tend to forget pro athletes are like any of us. They, too, are stricken with anxiety and emotions like this hit harder than any linebacker.

After all, these were also the feet that were supposed to repay his Mom and sister for their sacrifice and he couldn’t do what he did best: Cut. His superpower was temporarily MIA. After the 2020 season, doctors thought the fluid would go away. It did not. It lingered. He feared he wouldn’t be the same weapon in 2021. An offseason procedure finally cleaned it up and Gibson was good to go.

Right around then is when he snapped out of his funk, too.

Gibson didn’t need a heart-to-heart with anyone. He looked in the mirror. He didn’t have a choice.

“I had to,” Gibson says. “The baby was here. Camp was here. So, I was like, ‘I’ve got to get right.’”

His daughter was born and it hit Gibson that football has always been his “safe haven.” Football is what masked the pain of Dad’s absence. No wonder he couldn’t stop crying upon injuring his ankle in high school.

He needs the ball in his hands, needs to be that artist on the field.

For those three hours, nothing else matters.

“It clears your mind,” Gibson says. “I feel like if you can practice and do all of this… everything else? There’s nothing to worry about. Sometimes, it’s a good thing. Sometimes, it’s a bad thing. If you have a situation that really needs to be taken care of, you can say, ‘I’ll practice. I’m fine.’ And you put it in the back of your head. And, later, it’ll pop up.”

And that’s the thing. The colossal life change popping into his mind 24/7 now was welcomed. Gibson cannot get enough of his daughter. Even as he rehabilitated his toe in D.C. through the spring, Gibson made a point to fly back to Atlanta each Thursday through Sunday to be with her.

Here, his entire mood perks back up as the conversation shifts from his Dad to being a Dad.

Life as a father is clearly fueling everything we’ll see on the field in 2021.

“When I go home, I don’t try to do anything,” he says. “It’s just me and her.”

Fine, he confesses that he wanted a boy at first. His girlfriend, too. Now? He wouldn’t change a thing. His daughter’s turning him into a total softie. At the time of this chat, she’s only six weeks old so there’s not too much the family can do together. They tried going to a strawberry farm but, he says with a laugh, “she didn’t do anything but cry.” No doubt, Gibson would rather talk about parenthood than anything on a field.

He asks all about this visitor’s 21-month-old so he can know what to expect. When he hears about a certain no-neck pose, Gibson has to see a photo and, promptly, peels over.

Life as a Dad is the best. Gibson cannot wait to FaceTime his girl after this convo and is overcome with the desire to destroy anything that’d ever harm her.

“Seeing a fly around!” he says, pretending to swat a fly. “Getting it!”

His whole family will be with him in D.C. through the 2021 season and, yes, he’ll change all of the diapers that he can. Even after a certain, uh, episode.

As Gibson starts to tell this story, he can’t stop laughing. Initially, his daughter’s diapers didn’t stink. That “tar”-like substance was easy to handle. Now? He braces for impact. A week before this chat, Gibson correctly slid a clean diaper underneath the dirty one, wiped his daughter’s bottom, strapped on the clean diaper and she instantly filled it up.

He moved her to blanket and… she pooped all over the blanket.

He moved once more and… you guessed it. More mess. Everywhere.

Gibson is in near-tears reliving that day. That’s what his life is all about now — making memories.

“I can’t wait to get her to a game,” he says.

He’s not stressing anymore, no.

He’s ready to take over the league.

“AG”

For a moment, Antonio Gibson imagines himself back in his sanctuary.

The ball’s in his hands. He sees a crease. He’s thinking touchdown.

This is what life’s like in his cleats.

“My eyes get big,” he says. “I already have big eyes. But when I get the ball, I see so much. Sometimes, it can be a bad thing. As a receiver, I see so much and think I see a hole over there instead of just running straight. It’s like, ‘Oh! Let me go over there and try to make a play.’ I see a lot and I’m able to….”

Gibson snaps his fingers.

“…react so quick to certain moves. Against the Cardinals, I kind of shocked myself. I juked like four or five people. It wasn’t nothing crazy but it was quick reacting. Like, juke, cut, juke, jump cut! It was just quick reacting. It was just shocking. I don’t know. It just happens!

“I shock myself sometimes. But it’s always been like that. I just ride with it.”

There’s no AOL Dial Up processing in real time.

The jukes. The spins. The stiff-arms. Whatever he needs to do to escape is all innate, he explains. That’s what football itself always helped him do: Escape.

“I’m not even realizing this until now,” he says, “but that was a way to get away from everything — school, parents, anything that was going on outside of football. Like I said, I cried. The first three days. When you take that away, it’s horrible.”

Even though he’s at peace now, that escapability, that creativity is ingrained. Forever. So, this season, he’ll be that weapon we haven’t quite seen before.

He’ll be the singular force of nature who wills Washington past all the lawsuits, all the controversy, all the headaches right into legitimate contention. Gibson enjoys the love he’s been getting from fans. He hears everyone saying that he “could be that guy,” yet refuses to put himself on any pedestal because he knows that 2020 only provided a small taste of what’s to come.

“It wasn’t that special to me,” Gibson says. “I’m just touching the water. This year’s going to be something special.”

He pauses.

“This year is going to be something special.”

As in… Alvin Kamara? Christian McCaffrey? That stratosphere of special? There’s no hesitation. “Definitely, definitely,” Gibson says. He throws 2016 Le’Veon Bell in there, too. They have similar body types and Bell, too, could split out at receiver. With another full training camp of learning the running back position, Gibson knows his arrow will only point up. His position coach, Randy Jordan, has been teaching him how to be patient, press the line and force the defender to move before juking himself. Gibson is still new to this all, of course. He’s learning how to read his blocks, stay on a blocker’s outside hip and when to get north to take any yardage he can instead of going full Barry Sanders.

Still, Gibson believes the key is taking all of this coaching without completely rewiring those instincts.

He doesn’t want to overthink this all to the point of becoming too… too…

“Robotic,” he says. “I feel that’s what a lot of running backs do. When they grow up, all they do is running back. They’re stuck in that world of downhill running or make-a-cut-and-go. I feel that’s what makes me different going from receiver to running back. I make the extra cut. I’m not scared to make the extra cut. I’m not scared to make somebody miss in the backfield, and then try to get north. Or get shifty. Try to make a play. That’s what puts me over the edge of a lot of folks.”

That’s what makes Jordan such a good coach, too. He doesn’t sanitize Gibson’s creativity.

Take the end of a win vs. Cincinnati. On an outside zone play to the left, Gibson saw nothing but green to his right. He planted his foot, jetted across the field and says a defender barely tripped him up.

“If he didn’t catch my leg, I was out of there.”

Instead, Gibson lost five yards.

Nobody will shackle the playmaker within and you best believe he’ll swing for the fences again. He knows all defensive coordinators in the NFL are doing everything in their power to eliminate the big play and that he is the sort of unique talent who can take their gameplan and effectively slide it through a paper-shredder with one juke.

“I’m always looking for that big play,” Gibson says. “This is a big-play league. They don’t happen too often. It’s hard. I’m definitely trying to change that.”

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When it comes to film, OK, he’s watching a bit more. Gibson has been firing up the McCaffrey and Kamara clips of late and loves how in-control Kamara is of his own body. The Saints back lulls all other players on the field to his School Zone speed. As Gibson puts it, “he’s never 100 percent.” He runs at a “jog.” A “tempo pace.” He is… “cruising.” Which all allows Kamara to stop ‘n go at any moment. By forcing you to play at his speed, every one of Kamara’s cuts is that much more devastating.

Expect this from Gibson in 2021.

Further, he says his advantage over these two is that they’ve always been running backs. At receiver, he was going “toe to toe” with corners. He saw the game in a way they never have.

“Once it all comes full circle?” he says. “It’s going to be something to deal with.”

Norvell agrees. He believes the “full-field approach” that wide receiver demands gives Gibson an unlimited ceiling. Gibson knows how defenses are trying to attack — from the front to the back — and can play freely.

“He is the prototype of a game-changer,” Norvell says. “He can line up all over the field. There’s no limits to what he can accomplish. If he continues to grow and develop like I believe he will, he’s going to be one of the greats in the National Football League.”

Adds Williams: “He’s the type of kid who truly enjoys the game. He would play it for free. He loves football that much.”

Which is, precisely, what Washington has always needed.

A Johnny Cash-listening, “AG” necklace-wearing gamebreaker who’s new to this all.

Gibson can feel a building sense of hope with this fan base.

He cannot wait to play with quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, too. All people keep telling him is that Fitz is the best teammate he could have… and, yes, it’s true that Fitz loves throwing the ball to his backs. Adjust your fantasy cheatsheet accordingly. Just as they wanted absolutely nobody knowing they coveted Gibson out of Memphis, Washington doesn’t want a soul knowing how they’ll employ him in Year 2. Coaches kept their best playmaker mostly on ice.

This sense of newness, of unpredictability is what this franchise needed. Badly.

It’s what Gibson needed, too. A future wife. A daughter. He’s forming his own family now and could not be happier.

Football? That’s the fun part, a mystery to the man himself. Gibson heads outside to his sleek black car with the “HELL CAT” on the windshield and drives off to his second workout of the day. He can’t wait to morph himself into a weapon you haven’t seen before.

If you want to label him a savior, a face of the franchise, that’s fine.

All Gibson wants to go by is “Dad.”

And he’s got a few more diapers to change, too.