My evaluation of Shanahan starts now

We're not going to do well this season, but Shannahan has done a great job of reviving the roster from the mess Gibbs left him. He's succesfully transitioned us to a 3-4 defense, dropped our average age by about 8 years, and has really looked to build us up for the future.

I expect us to see RG3 struggle while he gains experience and builds a rapport with Garcon, Davis, etc. We will see an improved level of play on the field, but due to a difficult schedule and too many unknowns and some inexperience (with the NFL, scheme, etc) I don't think we'll see a big increase in wins. Regardless, Shanny has my vote of confidence. Even if he doesn't turn us into a winner, he will leave the next guy with a much better roster than he started with here in DC.

A team wins football games not 53 individual people. If there is one thing that stands out with all the previous Redskins supper bowl units is that they were a team and won as a team. Note: My statement above does not mean I'm saying they didn't have talent, they did. However the sum of all the parts was much stronger then each individual.

Shanny has been cultivating that since day one. RG3 seems to get that too and from all I've read and seen of the preseason the team is much more connected then they have been in years.

I think that will translate into more wins this year.

But the truth is: the reason that no one is picking the Redskins to win the division in Shanahan's third year is because we've seen over the last two years that things aren't different than they were under Zorn, so we're looking for small positive signs from RG3 et al, instead of big things from our football team.

That isn't even remotely the truth.

The reason no ones picking the Skins to win the division is that most people are observant enough to realize that the Eagles, Giants and Cowboys all have established QB's and are all more stocked with skilled players further along in their development, and have had better records. and this makes it likely that they will win more games than the Skins. It doesn't guarantee it of course and this year is a lot more up in the air. Who knows, I could see the Eagles and Cowboys self destructing (or wining the division for that matter they are both very volatile teams) Along with that most observant people can see the Skins have a rookie QB and are still in a rebuild, and on paper are less stocked with players (although the gap is getting smaller for sure).

Things aren't different? IMO Stupid discipline penalties, false starts, delay of game and the like have declined remarkably. I wont look the stats up but I believe they have declined a lot. Have the personnel decisions gotten better? Well arguable because of McNabb and Brown, but at least in the second year onward for the most part they seem to have. Are the "inmates" still "running the asylum"? Are we seeing pampered prima donnas who don't have to practice and a clear lack of competition in camp or a bunch of silly dramas? No not post Fat Albert, Snyderatto's golden poster boy for why the last ten years failed. Have they made any Jason Taylor like trades? Well McNabb pretty much so yeah, still not sure how much of that was Snyder pushing for jersey sales versus Shanahan wanting it... Never seemed like a Mike Shanahan move to me. How about bringing in WAY OVERPAID old has been free agents? No in fact they have been good about getting younger FA's and concentrating on drafts. Are they still taking upside in the draft and disregarding character and work ethic almost entirely? No it doesn't appear that way, it looks like the opposite.

The Team has a worse record post Zorn for pretty clear reasons, unless of course you think Vinny and Zorn were better at their jobs than the current regime? It seems easy to observe that they lost a number of decent but past their prime Veteran players especially on the OL, at the same time that a bunch of Snyderatto's terrible picks all washed out... over the course of a couple years. While a few GOOD vets and picks that they happened on to by accident have become free agents and moved on.

They are three years "post Snyderatto" and the only remarkable draft picks left on the team picked by them are Brian Orakpo and Davis. Talk about a complete failure at every level.

IMO the argument could be made that not going 2-14 or 3-13 the past couple years is a minor accomplishment (or a hindrance to the rebuild depending on how you want to look at it) especially given how easy it is for a team to fall hard when adversity sets in (See the Colts).

So it's pretty clear with hindsight that whether they turn out to be successful or not, the Shanahan's jumped into a plane that was in a nose dive plummeting towards the earth and are still trying overcome downward momentum to level off. If they can manage to pull it out of the dive before it smashes them into the ground remains to be seen.

That isn't even remotely the truth.

The reason no ones picking the Skins to win the division is that most people are observant enough to realize that the Eagles, Giants and Cowboys all have established QB's and are all more stocked with skilled players further along in their development, and have had better records. and this makes it likely that they will win more games than the Skins. It doesn't guarantee it of course and this year is a lot more up in the air. Who knows, I could see the Eagles and Cowboys self destructing (or wining the division for that matter they are both very volatile teams) Along with that most observant people can see the Skins have a rookie QB and are still in a rebuild, and on paper are less stocked with players (although the gap is getting smaller for sure).

Things aren't different? IMO Stupid discipline penalties, false starts, delay of game and the like have declined remarkably. I wont look the stats up but I believe they have declined a lot. Have the personnel decisions gotten better? Well arguable because of McNabb and Brown, but at least in the second year onward for the most part they seem to have. Are the "inmates" still "running the asylum"? Are we seeing pampered prima donnas who don't have to practice and a clear lack of competition in camp or a bunch of silly dramas? No not post Fat Albert, Snyderatto's golden poster boy for why the last ten years failed. Have they made any Jason Taylor like trades? Well McNabb pretty much so yeah, still not sure how much of that was Snyder pushing for jersey sales versus Shanahan wanting it... Never seemed like a Mike Shanahan move to me. How about bringing in WAY OVERPAID old has been free agents? No in fact they have been good about getting younger FA's and concentrating on drafts. Are they still taking upside in the draft and disregarding character and work ethic almost entirely? No it doesn't appear that way, it looks like the opposite.

The Team has a worse record post Zorn for pretty clear reasons, unless of course you think Vinny and Zorn were better at their jobs than the current regime? It seems easy to observe that they lost a number of decent but past their prime Veteran players especially on the OL, at the same time that a bunch of Snyderatto's terrible picks all washed out... over the course of a couple years. While a few GOOD vets and picks that they happened on to by accident have become free agents and moved on.

They are three years "post Snyderatto" and the only remarkable draft picks left on the team picked by them are Brian Orakpo and Davis. Talk about a complete failure at every level.

IMO the argument could be made that not going 2-14 or 3-13 the past couple years is a minor accomplishment (or a hindrance to the rebuild depending on how you want to look at it) especially given how easy it is for a team to fall hard when adversity sets in (See the Colts).

So it's pretty clear with hindsight that whether they turn out to be successful or not, the Shanahan's jumped into a plane that was in a nose dive plummeting towards the earth and are still trying overcome downward momentum to level off. If they can manage to pull it out of the dive before it smashes them into the ground remains to be seen.I think you make a couple of really good arguments (strength of the division, improved discipline with regard to having dumb penalties), but ultimately, it's based around the conclusion that Shanahan is/has been a good coach here, when all the evidence in the world is telling us not to make the conclusion.

Teams go worst to first all the time. In fact, a better predictor of future win loss record than past win loss record is simply .500. Most teams start right in the middle of the pack every year instead of at the bottom. The Redskins aren't an exception.

The reason the Redskins finished at the bottom in 2010 and 2011, as they did in 2009, is because they are still doing a couple of things that are fundamentally wrong. 2012 is a new year and they are not resigned to being worse than the Cowboys, Eagles, and Giants. But if we are expecting them to lag behind, it is not because of the past. It's because the Cowboys, Eagles, and Giants are doing something consistently (particularly recently) each season that the Redskins are not.

Here's the big point:

Oakland Raiders, 2009-2011
5-11 (got blown out by Zorn's Redskins at home)
8-8
8-8

Washington Redskins 2009-2011
4-12
6-10
5-11

Were the Redskins ever in worse shape than the Raiders? Almost certainly not. But the Raiders stopped making toxic organizational decisions for a moment, and while they didn't become a good team, they started to win big against bad teams.

Achieving mediocrity isn't the hard part of rebuilding a team. If Zorn was doing things fundamentally wrong, Shanahan should have had that corrected by year one. The fact that he didn't get that corrected by year two is especially troubling.

Achieving mediocrity isn't the hard part of rebuilding a team. If Zorn was doing things fundamentally wrong, Shanahan should have had that corrected by year one. The fact that he didn't get that corrected by year two is especially troubling.

Can you be more specific? it's hard to argue with you because as best as I can determine you're saying "other teams go worst to first" and "why can't Shanahan".

IMO Zorn was in over his head, but he had a Veteran roster that was mostly coached by Joe Gibbs, which counter balanced his poor leadership with Veteran experience. Those guys retired, left, or just couldn't do it any more. Along with that a bunch of bad draft picks all proved out to be bad. All in the very short space of time after they hired Shanahan

I've pointed to specific reasons why the "momentum" of the teams skill level and leadership was PLUMMETING. And thus left the current regime in a bad spot. If your argument is "well other teams improve unexpectedly" I would ask you to detail WHY those teams improved? What did the new coach do that the previous one didn't?

IMO you'll find that most surprising teams are flashes in the pan, OR they were already stocked with talent, and the new coach didn't have to do much except LEAD THEM. I'll give two recent examples:

The 49'ers they were finally restocked with talent after years of low draft picks and rebuilding, all Harbaugh had to do was lead them and get them to pull in the same direction. The previous coach might have instilled some discipline, but he was also bad at managing the game in real time, in addition to his more "visible" faults of being a vindictive maniac who called his own players out on the air. Bring in "the good cop" to Singletary's "bad cop" and wallah.

On the other hand Rahim Morris got a flash in the pan, and then fired the following year... Do you honestly believe he was a good coach one year and sucked the next? His players got confident and pulled together and then the next they lost confidence after injuries and losses... Simple as that. The team dynamic at work and the HC got all the credit and then all the blame.

Sports, and especially Football just doesn't work that way. They are complex systems, the worst coach or the best coach only has so much effect... We fans give WAY more credit and way more blame than is actually due. And whats more most of us even recognize that we do this...Especially with QB's and coaches. Yet when we get emotional and our team is doing poorly we want heads to roll... Which is far more about our satisfaction (revenge for making our Sundays suck) than whats best for the long term direction of the team. Emotions do not make good long term decisions.

This emotional fan reaction is largely responsible for the state of the team under Snyder. Because Snyder IS A FAN, and he REACTS like a fan, so he gets that same satisfaction firing the coach that fans screaming for heads to roll, do. And predictably (or you can use 12 years of hindsight if you prefer) this results in a bad team with no long term direction or vision or plan, because every new regime is scrambling to make short term fixes before they get fired...

I think though if Shanahan was a half-decent head coach, any on-field issues related to Zorn being over his head should have been corrected by 2010. Some were (penalties for example), I think, but for a guy who we are giving a ton of credit to for making the roster better/young, there sure was many millions of dollars given to Larry Johnson and Donovan McNabb to be old.

There was also a lot of rebuilding moves that Shanahan opted not to make in the name of winning right away. DeAngelo Hall is STILL here. Santana Moss got paid with younger, more talented receivers out there. Albert Haynesworth did make the 2010 team, sort of. We traded a sixth round pick plus a useful piece for Tim Hightower. The contract standoff with London Fletcher (which the Redskins did --it should be noted-- win) turned me off a bit. And now with RG3, we know exactly what the top of every draft Shanahan will make as Redskins head coach will look like.

I do think a big part of the plan has been to get younger, but the thing we can say about the 2012 team is that every piece Mike Shanahan intended to put in place while coach of the Redskins is already in place. I don't think anyone, including coach Shanahan, thinks this is a complete team. But I think he really believes it's a good team, or he wouldn't have built it this way.

I'm not outright rejecting the perspective that Shanahan made the Redskins younger with the intent of winning over a long span of time as opposed to right away. That might well prove to be true. If so, it's almost certainly going to require someone else to come in here and finish what he started.

Here's the big point:

Oakland Raiders, 2009-2011
5-11 (got blown out by Zorn's Redskins at home)
8-8
8-8

Washington Redskins 2009-2011
4-12
6-10
5-11

Were the Redskins ever in worse shape than the Raiders? Almost certainly not. But the Raiders stopped making toxic organizational decisions for a moment, and while they didn't become a good team, they started to win big against bad teams.

Achieving mediocrity isn't the hard part of rebuilding a team. If Zorn was doing things fundamentally wrong, Shanahan should have had that corrected by year one. The fact that he didn't get that corrected by year two is especially troubling.

Exactly what NFL coaching experience do you have that would make you qualified to speak about the fundamentals of coaching in the NFL and whether or not Mike Shanahan has been performing those fundamentals correctly?

I do think the argument that the 2009 Redskins were in so much worse shape than other unsuccessful teams at the time is a huge red herring. 2009 was so long ago. The Vikings were in the NFC Championship. The Chiefs were perennially a top of the draft organization. The Jay Cutler trade was the laughingstock of the NFL. The Lions had won 3 of their last 40 games. Tony Romo won a playoff game. Trent Williams was a college right tackle.

And the Redskins lost some close games by making stupid boneheaded mistakes and came in at 4-12 well below their talent level. And people like Cerrato got fired. It's time to stop using the past as the excuses for questionable moves being made in the present, like the Redskins' interest in Steve Slaton.

Exactly what NFL coaching experience do you have that would make you qualified to speak about the fundamentals of coaching in the NFL and whether or not Mike Shanahan has been performing those fundamentals correctly?

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