Rex Grossman on NFL Radio Sunday

You might be new here so maybe you didn't know.
But, I do believe you the order mixed up.
Most Redskin's fans readily talk about and blame McNabb.
And conversely most fans give Kyle a pass.

Just out of curiosity do you have kids?
There is no way Mike would take over as playcaller, and if it did happen there is no way that would get leaked.
Mike isn't going end his own sons coaching career by stripping him of playcalling duties, ain't gonna happen.

Thank you 30gut, you beat me to the reply. I am not sure where NLC1050 has been the last 9 months, but majority of the blame has been on McNabb. It really does not matter if it is right or wrong, it just is the truth. As pretty as we want the Shanahan family partnership/experiment to be, nepotism unfortunately has many down sides.

They are publicly blame shifting. Turning the focus from a poor system/player/personality evaluation to McNabb not wanting to wear a wristband, or McNabb not practicing with great urgency. If Shany would accept his portion of the blame I would consider it reciprocal fault, but he hasn't for the sake of maintaining appearences. Sounds like scapegoating to me.

Either that or Shanahan simply can't admit to himself, because of his own egocetricities, that he made a mistake.

If they wouldn't have publicly leaked this information his image would have remainded relatively untarnished and so would McNabb's. I think the fact that it came to light actually does more harm them good to Mike's image and to DMs stock. The fact that he couldn't motivate a guy that is obviously respected league wide indicates that he isn't as great of a leader of men as we initially thought.

Sorry for being late to the party but .... I don't see it as shifting blame, it's simply more information coming out. They came out and said this is why we benched him, then some how the wrist band incident came out, I'd guess there might have been maybe a couple of other issue's that we fans just don't know about. We fans need to stop making excuses for McNabb and look at the whole picture. McNabb did have all these issue's. Heck, some of us here were against the team picking up McNabb and some of us pointed out flaws we were concerned with him and they showed up on the field, ie; he's no longer the elusive QB he used to be due to his knees, he has no sense of urgency, he has no clock management for the 2 min. drill, etc. etc. These qualities are not the type MS or KS needed to run their scheme.

I won't put all the blame on McNabb though our OL sucked, only 1 WR, terrible run blocking.....

Sorry for being late to the party but .... I don't see it as shifting blame, it's simply more information coming out. They came out and said this is why we benched him, then some how the wrist band incident came out, I'd guess there might have been maybe a couple of other issue's that we fans just don't know about. We fans need to stop making excuses for McNabb and look at the whole picture. McNabb did have all these issue's. Heck, some of us here were against the team picking up McNabb and some of us pointed out flaws we were concerned with him and they showed up on the field, ie; he's no longer the elusive QB he used to be due to his knees, he has no sense of urgency, he has no clock management for the 2 min. drill, etc. etc. These qualities are not the type MS or KS needed to run their scheme.

I won't put all the blame on McNabb though our OL sucked, only 1 WR, terrible run blocking.....


I don't feel like I'm making excuses for McNabb. I've addressed the topic in previous posts. Saying I don't think McNabb is blameless in this senario. Even in my post that you quoted I go on to use the phrase "reciprocal fault", meaning that I feel both parties shoulder a portion of the responsibility for the maladriot fashion in which our offense functioned. However, I don't consider it an honorable move to deride and defame McNabb in the mainstream media, regardless of who it was who actually leaked the information. The way I percieve it, it's an underhanded tactic used to distort a well rounded focus on all the contributing factors in our poor offensive production, to shifting the blame to a single man. It's fine if you don't see it that way. You're entitled to your perspective.

I still contend that McNabb is the best QB on our roster. Just like I believed Campbell was the best QB on our roster before we traded for McNabb. Where's JC now, sweeping divisions on the west coast in his first season. Granted it's not as dominant of a division, but they still face the Chargers twice a season. A team that last year was top 10 in both passing offense and defense. No small feat. Do I know what the future holds for Beck or Grossman in this offense, no. But if it comes down to either of them playing starting QB for the Redskins, I'll be right there hoping for both prosperity and success. All I'm doing is stating what is currently an irrefutable fact. McNabb is the best QB on our roster.

He may be the best QB on the roster but more importantly he's shown he's not the best fit for this offense.

He may be the best QB on the roster but more importantly he's shown he's not the best fit for this offense.

With the * that Kyle wasn't keen on having him run the offense from the beginning. I don't feel like your statement is an irrevocable truth when you consider the possibility that he wasn't given all the tools he needed to succeed. I think great coaches have to adapt to the personel that they are given, or that they inherit. I think that instead of working in concert for the betterment of the collective whole, there was an underlying power struggle between McNabb and Kyle. Both parties effected the outcome, but it's a coaches job to make his players feel comfortable, welcome and like there is an open line of communication, not simply to impose their will without any outside input.

Kyle added stuff to the offense that clearly was more like stuff they run in Philly than it was stuff that he ran in Houston. In the second half of the season (after the benching), there were a lot more plays that "McNabb would be comfortable with" called.

It might be a coaches' job to make his players feel comfortable, but it's a player's job to go out and execute the plays as called. Donovan just didn't execute the way he was supposed to.

And there probably was a power struggle, but I think it had as much to do with veteran hard-headedness as it did with Kyle being slow to change his offense.

It's give and take. Even not wanting McNabb, I very much believe Kyle wanted to make it work. It didn't.

With the * that Kyle wasn't keen on having him run the offense from the beginning. I don't feel like your statement is an irrevocable truth when you consider the possibility that he wasn't given all the tools he needed to succeed. I think great coaches have to adapt to the personel that they are given, or that they inherit. I think that instead of working in concert for the betterment of the collective whole, there was an underlying power struggle between McNabb and Kyle. Both parties effected the outcome, but it's a coaches job to make his players feel comfortable, welcome and like there is an open line of communication, not simply to impose their will without any outside input.

Obviously for whatever reasons Kyle S. and McNabb just didn't mesh. I'm not going to pretend to know who's more at fault or more to blame, at this point it's just best for both parties to chalk it up as a mistake and move on.

Obviously for whatever reasons Kyle S. and McNabb just didn't mesh. I'm not going to pretend to know who's more at fault or more to blame, at this point it's just best for both parties to chalk it up as a mistake and move on.

Agreed.

Kyle added stuff to the offense that clearly was more like stuff they run in Philly than it was stuff that he ran in Houston. In the second half of the season (after the benching), there were a lot more plays that "McNabb would be comfortable with" called.

It might be a coaches' job to make his players feel comfortable, but it's a player's job to go out and execute the plays as called. Donovan just didn't execute the way he was supposed to.

And there probably was a power struggle, but I think it had as much to do with veteran hard-headedness as it did with Kyle being slow to change his offense.

It's give and take. Even not wanting McNabb, I very much believe Kyle wanted to make it work. It didn't.


You're right. Eventually Kyle implemented a screen game. My question is why didn't he concede to doing it earlier in the season when we were having some fundamental problems in the run game? Not to say that screens cure all that ails, but it's definitely a proven and effective method to manifest some of the yards lost from forcing the run. They also help to expand a condensed and over persuing defense opening the middle of the field for quick slants and drag routes across the middle. The Saints use them. So do the Patriots and Indy runs designed wheel routes out of the backfield which essentially serves the same purpose. The Chargers, the Jags, Dallas. Obviously Philly uses the screen with great frequency and success.

I believe this is the forth time now that I'm saying that McNabb played his part in the downward spiraling.

If Kyle truly wanted to make it work he would have recognized DMs skill set and adapted his offense earlier.

Well I don't think it's like we didn't run screens at all before then. We just didn't run them with the frequency that we did later in the season.

You have to look at the circumstances of the game. The first Dallas game was just a struggle no matter what was the case. Versus the Texans, we were ripping their secondary to shreds, so the screen game becomes less neccessary.

Versus the Rams, the run game was functional enough that they did need to use the screen game. Torain exploded versus the Eagles the next week.

The Packers killed us defensively, and maybe using more screens would've been key there. But then you have Torain running for over 100 yards for Indy the next week (where they still ran some screen plays), and then he rushed for 100 versus the Bears in a team that's not suspetible to getting fooled by screens.

I think the Lions game is where we start to see them used more frequently, which is apparently where all the trouble really started to take place.

The screens worked to great effectiveness versus the Titans the following week, but the Giants were ready for it the next week and completely killed the screen game, which seemed like it was our whole gameplan. The same thing goes for the Vikings game the week after that. And then the next week you have Torain bulldozing every one in Tampa.

So when you go back and look at the game situations and how the team did and looked offensively, McNabb had trouble running the offense that Kyle wanted. And then when Kyle implemented more things McNabb was more comfortable with, McNabb still had more trouble with it.

Once teams figured out we were going to be running more screen passes, they did a better job of stopping us from using them. And that forced McNabb to play more within the regular offense, which he couldn't execute.