My evaluation of Shanahan starts now

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?What in the name of hades are you talking about? Am I really unqualified to compare and contrast two teams over the last three years?

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.

LJ got cut, dont think he had any guaranteed money.

They had no possible way to cut Haynesworth, he was owed that bonus whether he was on the team or not. It was all done before him, and it created quite a circus, at least Shanahan made him run some sprints. The front office did all the genius work with the cap....

I'm honestly not going to judge shanny yet. Our team just isn't that good. Our O-line was junk before the injuries.

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.The irony is the same people that praise Shanahan now decry how devoid of talent the team was before.
Yet the team before was as productive as the team now despite having far less talent OL, WR etc.
The irony of the Raiders franchise is that they used the QB that Shanahan cast off to gain stability.

Zorn wasn't as bad as people thought, (and if Zorn was that makes Campbell play here even more impressive) but then again Campbell wasn't as bad as people thought.
Shanahan hasn't been as good as people thought.
Myself included I was Mike Shanahan biggest proponent but that was back when I thought that Bruce Allen was an actual GM and that Kyle Shanahan would be bring Mike Shanahan Denver/WCO offense and not some pass centric varaint.

But, that is all water under the bridge for me.
The Mike Shanahan regime has bought themselves more time by drafting Robert Griffin.
And although they over paid, Griffin is a stud.
I'm one of the few that think Griffin is a better prospect the Andrew Luck.
And for the sake on Griffin's development Mike has bought himself 2 years.
Would I rather Rob Chudzinski be the HC for Griffin? Yes.

But right now we're married to Mike Shanahan and he to Griffin.
Hopefully Griffin's dynamic ability coupled with some good coaching/gameplanning will be enough to overcome some of Mike Shanahan's personnel misques. (like at RT)

-HTTR

Lets go Griff!

The irony is the same people that praise Shanahan now decry how devoid of talent the team was before.
Yet the team before was as productive as the team now despite having far less talent OL, WR etc.
The irony of the Raiders franchise is that they used the QB that Shanahan cast off to gain stability.

Zorn wasn't as bad as people thought, (and if Zorn was that makes Campbell play here even more impressive) but then again Campbell wasn't as bad as people thought.
Shanahan hasn't been as good as people thought.
Myself included I was Mike Shanahan biggest proponent but that was back when I thought that Bruce Allen was an actual GM and that Kyle Shanahan would be bring Mike Shanahan Denver/WCO offense and not some pass centric varaint.

But, that is all water under the bridge for me.
The Mike Shanahan regime has bought themselves more time by drafting Robert Griffin.
And although they over paid, Griffin is a stud.
I'm one of the few that think Griffin is a better prospect the Andrew Luck.
And for the sake on Griffin's development Mike has bought himself 2 years.
Would I rather Rob Chudzinski be the HC for Griffin? Yes.

But right now we're married to Mike Shanahan and he to Griffin.
Hopefully Griffin's dynamic ability coupled with some good coaching/gameplanning will be enough to overcome some of Mike Shanahan's personnel misques. (like at RT)

-HTTR

Lets go Griff!

Who are you talking about?
Why would you have though that?

Who are you talking about?
Why would you have though that?Jason Campbell,but I should correct.
Mike Shanahan didn't cast off Campbell, I fell into the media perception for a second.
Campbell asked to be traded because he didn't want to be the back-up to McNabb and felt he could still start in the NFL.
And Shanahan actually did him a solid and allowed him to seek a trade.

Kyle comes from the Houston Texans who under Gary Kubiac run the Mike Shanahan Denver WCO and keep with Mike's balanced pass-run ratio of near 50-50.
Kyle is the only playcaller from that system that leans heavily towards the pass with a 60-40 ratio.

I can at least entertain the argument that Shanahan has brought something important to the team that was lacking with Jim Zorn, even if it hasn't shown in the standings. But I think the discussion should begin there, and back with the decisions made two years ago that shaped this team to be the way it is today, and not with a total write off of the last two seasons.

The problem is that if the Redskins underachieve again this year and go 6-10, then some people are going to claim that no one could have seen that coming and we need a longer time period to evaluate Mr. Shanahan.

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.


Yes, things are much different with Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan than they were under Vinny Cerratto and Jim Zorn. First thing is since Allen and Shanahan came on board, there has been tremendous overhaul to the roster two years and counting. The Redskins had a average draft in Mike Shanahan's first year, and the last two drafts they have drafted extremely well. One of the reasons the Redskins struggled on offense last year was the QB play. With RG3 although he's a rookie, the quarterback play will be much improved. I've been on NFL.com and I've seen what the so-called experts are predicting for the Redskins. Some analysts have the Redskins going 7-9. Other have the Redskins being 8-8. And one said 6-10.

I think they are all wrong. In addition to those draft picks, Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan has signed some key free agents on the offensive side of the ball too. Under Grossman and Beck at quarterback, the Redskins finished 16th in total offense. With Griffin III at quarterback along with Garcon, Moss, Hankerson, J. Morgan, Fred Davis, Niles Paul, I expect that offensive ranking to be greater than it was last season. Include an above average running game, and this Redskins offense can be in the top 10 this season.

I expect at worse the Redskins to be 8-8. At best they are at least a 10-6 team or better.

I agree with you that the Redskins should be very good this year. At least, they've done enough over the last two offseasons to put themselves in position to be very good this year. I suspect that they haven't changed enough to go get it done on a week to week campaign, but they have big play ability on both offense and defense.

I agree with you that the Redskins should be very good this year. At least, they've done enough over the last two offseasons to put themselves in position to be very good this year. I suspect that they haven't changed enough to go get it done on a week to week campaign, but they have big play ability on both offense and defense.

Why are you still impersonating GTripp? Have you kidnapped him? :)

Holy smokes, if Tripp has guarded optimism, maybe this will be a very good year.

I pretty much always have guarded optimism. I just can't buy in wholly to what I've seen the last two years until something convinces me it's different now.

That's why I've been a bit slower to get swept up in the RG3 madness. RG3 is awesome. But RG3 running Kyle Shanahan's offense is less exciting than it could be if he was running Andy Reid's offense or Kevin Gilbride's offense or even Mike Martz' offense. So I see this season as a mixed bag, but I'm cautiously optimistic about their chances this season.