There are two versions to this story, but it doesn’t change the bottom line – the Washington Redskins doing terribly under Mike Shanahan, only he’s been trying to make it look like Dan Snyder and Robert Griffin III are really the reason everything has gone wrong with this team this season.
A couple of days ago, just before the Redskins lost for a fifth consecutive time (45-10 to the Kansas City Chiefs), a story came out about how Shanahan was ready to leave and resign at the end of the 2012 NFL season. Shanahan wasn’t exactly willing to discuss the situation after the loss, naturally.
So are things that bad? Have they been this bad for such a long time? Maybe believe it was Shanahan himself who leaked that story to the press, trying to win the war of perception, and taking advantage of the poor opinion people have of Dan Snyder, the Redskins’ owner, who has been considered a very opinionated, meddling one until not too long ago.
But what is the truth, really? Is Snyder being buddy-buddy with Griffin the reason for the quarterback’s poor play this season? Or maybe it’s the poor play calling of Kyle Shanahan, the coach’s son, and the way this team has been built over the last four years, with Shanahan being the one who also got to call the shots as a GM, only not by name?
This piece from Hogshaven might be a bit biased, to be sure, but it helps casts a very different light on the whole situation. One of Griffin being the one solely in charge of the massive 7-win turnaround by the Redskins last year, while Shanahan pretty much quit on that team, beginning to talk about next season and the future after the 3-6 start. How Griffin shouldn’t be running the read-option, but keeps getting called to do it.
Shanahan took a lot of flack last playoff for keeping Griffin in the game against the Seahawks with an injury, and then resulted in disaster – losing the game and Griffin tearing his knee ligament. Shanahan has tried blaming the doctor or Griffin himself, but it’s hard to point the finger at anyone but the head coach, who should be experienced enough and authoritative enough to tell a rookie that he’s not coming back into the game, because the future of the franchise depends on it.
How does all this media war end? Shanahan not keeping his job. When you go 24-36 (and it’ll probably get worse by the time the season is over), and the team seems to be taking more steps backwards in almost every possible way, not even the penalties the NFL imposed on the Redskins are going to be enough of an excuse. Snyder might not be the best NFL owner in history, but he did let Shanahan do his job without interruption since signing him in 2010. When you take Shanahan’s record from 2006 to this day, we find out he’s had only two winning seasons and one playoff appearance. It can’t be all someone else’s fault, right?