Are we being fair to Kyle Shanahan?

Offensive coordinators do not make great QBs or great offenses.I agree with your overall point but I disagree with the above.
Good OCs make players better.

That's the whole point of coaching to take the talent you have and make them better.

For example:
Chan Gailey: Ryan Fitzpatrick,Tyler Thigpen
Josh McDaniels: Kyle Orton, Matt Cassell
Mike Shanahan+Bobby Turner: Almost every RB they've ever had
etc....

I mean, you gotta remember, Mike won a lot of football games with some quarterbacks that would make you scratch your head. He wasn't going to get over the hump with some of those guys, but the fact that he won with some less than ideal quarterbacks says something.

And let's look at what Andy Reid has done. How many times did the Eagles not miss a step when McNabb got injured, and then they somehow turned around and spun those guys into draft picks and trades, and then those guys went elsewhere and did exactly frak all? Heck, that even happened with McNabb.

So yeah, sometimes it is the offensive coordinator over the player at the position, or at least how the offense is designed.

As far as I'm concerned Kyle is just a kid that hasn't done anything yet.
Until he helps deliver me some consistent playoff wins, that's his status.

In that case, only two of our coordinators have done anything; Mike and Bobby Turner.

The "you're not anything until you win me some playoff games!" mentality has been one that's stunted the growth of this football team for a long time, which is why we've switched so many coordinators, which has led to so much inconsistency.

In that case, only two of our coordinators have done anything; Mike and Bobby Turner.

The "you're not anything until you win me some playoff games!" mentality has been one that's stunted the growth of this football team for a long time, which is why we've switched so many coordinators, which has led to so much inconsistency.

Doesnt the head coach pick the OC?
If so then the OC selection has nothing to do with this teams "stunted growth".
The root cause there belongs to Snyders inability to find a decent coach.

NFL offensive coordinator is not a position where typically the criticisms of your work are fair.

With that qualification in place, I'd question whether or not he was a hot name based on his work with the Texans. One thing is for sure: he's young and has some upside as a pro coach. On our coaching staff, that's important. We need new ideas constantly. Mike Shanahan and Jim Haslett and Danny Smith and others have been around the block in the NFL with less-than-promising results. Kyle at least deserves the shot to fail, which is not something you can say about the lot of our coaches.

2010 was a pretty big failure though. The longer Sherm Lewis remains the gold standard of what the Redskins offense can accomplish, the longer we will go since being a model franchise. As a staple of who he is, Kyle Shanahan just isn't formation diverse. That's fine, because you can do a lot out of a couple of formations and personnel packages and using motion to work between those formations, but he's a pass heavy playcaller who isn't formation or package diverse, and that's what doesn't fly in the NFC East.

The gag of throwing the football with running personnel on the field creates opportunities for the big play, but he almost then needs a super efficient running game to be the heart beat of the offense because you don't have screens or quick passes in there to move the ball consistently down the field. But he's one to let his offensive personnel dictate if he's going to run the ball at all.

The problem, then, is that at worst, their is no consistent principle present in the offense. Sometimes you can play the super bowl champs and win 16-13 because you caught a second team safety deep in the fourth quarter for a fifty yard score...but that relies on your bottom quartile defense being able to hold the Packers offense to basically no positive movement after the first quarter, AND to force the GW T.O. in overtime. Point is, it can work, but when you try to repeat the model six weeks later against the Vikings, Brett Favre gets on the edge a couple of times and you lose to a bad team.

Kyle Shanahan needs to demonstrate the ability to create formation mismatches so that the Redskins can throw the ball for 6-12 yards at a time with consistency, so that they can choose when to employ the running game and when to force opponents to defend the pass. The current model is one that I just don't think works. You can have the personnel to throw downfield a lot, and it creates big yards in the aggregate, but it puts a lot of pressure on the defense to keep you in the game.

I think 2010 was the worst case scenario under Kyle Shanahan, but I don't think that excuses his approach entirely.

Don't you think that it's more important to get players that can create their own mismatches? The Colts don't formation you to death or use a lot of motion. I think it's more important to get some better players in here and work on execution.

Someone saids that if his name was Kyle Anderson he would not be taking all this criticism. Maybe so... If his name was Kyle Anderson and had the same track record, he might not be an OC in the NFL yet. Double-edged sword there...


Consider the possibility that Kyle Shanahan got his job in Houston in the first place because the head coach in Houston had been Mike Shanahan's OC for years in Denver. Sometimes it is as much who you know as what you know...


BTW, Gary Kubiak was a pretty good OC in Denver and was even better when John Elway was under center.


Offensive coordinators do not make great QBs or great offenses. Really good offensive players can make any offensive coordinator look a lot smarter than he really is.


A major part of coaching - - or being a coordinator - - is the ability to handle the differing peronalities and egos on the football team that the coach is handed. The Shanahans (Kyle AND Mike) handled the Donovan McNabb fiasco about as ham-handedly as you could imagine. Mike Shanahan - - based on his experience - - should have known better. Obviously, Kyle Shanahan still has a lot to learn about that part of coaching/coordinating.


Are we ready for the dawn of the "John Beck Era"?

Exactly. I don't like it that Mike hired his son. Bad idea imo, but I think Kyle can do the job if he has the players and the QB around him. He's already proven that in Houston.

Don't you think that it's more important to get players that can create their own mismatches? The Colts don't formation you to death or use a lot of motion. I think it's more important to get some better players in here and work on execution.In a word, yes, I think that is more important. But that was true even when Zorn was here.

It's also based on what you value in the players. The Patriots value players like Danny Woodhead and Aaron Hernandez who...half the reason why they are on an NFL roster at all is because they come into the huddle and dictate what personnel the defense puts on the field, but then they can go and line up anywhere in the formation to make Brady's job easy. Same deal with Saints TEs and WRs such as Jimmy Graham, David Thomas, Reggie Bush, Devery Henderson, and Marques Colston.

Even if you gave Kyle Shanahan any of those players, I don't think he would create any mismatches with them. I think if the Redskins offense is going to be successful, the Shanahan's are going to do it by being 1) more disciplined, and 2) more talented than the opponent. But there's no special skill set to being a Kyle Shanahan football player, and that's evidenced by his use of Keiland Williams, Chris Cooley, Anthony Armstrong, et al in 2011. He's young and has ideas and values, but he's not a great offensive mind.

I think if his name was Kyle Anderson and not related to the head coach we wouldn't hear any of this criticism but he's an easy target because he's young, relatively inexperienced and the son of a big name-big ego head coach. He was already being criticized when he was hired because it was seen in some (ignorant) circles as nepotism.

To judge him on last years production with a constantly revolving line, a complete in season overhaul (starting with Portis & Larry Johnson-finishing with Torrain & Keiland Williams), one of the worst WR corps in recent NFL memory-also in constant flux and a QB who wouldn't/didn't grasp and implement the system is ridiculous.

In watching the games again this offseason, I see lots of potential for this offense to be explosive. More passes downfield than we'd seen in decades, more opportunities to move the chains (squandered by lack of execution on McNabb or the lines part in many cases) and more opportunities to score points in the red zone than we'd seen in the recent past. If Gano connects on 50% more of his FG we're talking about at least an 8 win team last year. We were in position to make plays and score points, we just didn't.

He's got work to do this year for sure. Establish (and commit to) the running game more. Get Davis more involved in the passing game. Continue to get Armstrong the ball and incorporate Hankerson in the passing game. Figure out a way to get the ball in Banks hands 3-5 times a game.

I have few concerns about Kyle as a coach and think we've got a future star on the sidelines.Are you at all concerned that the pretty good Texans offense truly exploded when Kyle left? I mean sure, it doesn't take a genius to draw up plays that will allow Matt Schaub, Owen Daniels, and Andre Johnson to put up their numbers, but Kyle left and the Texans found that they had great pieces in Arian Foster, Vonta Leach, and Joel Dressen as well, not to mention they finally found five offensive lineman who could be their starting OL 4 years from now.

I don't know how much that really says about Kyle, probably nothing, but if he's going to be given a pass based on his success with the Texans, it's worth pointing out that the Texans offense w/o Kyle was better than it was with him.

Kyle is not indanger and I think is a decent coach and we will see improvement this year.

I think Haslett's lesh is very short at this point. If he doesnt get it together this year, he's done for sure.