'GordonGekko said:
SSOG,I respect your football opinion, I always have. On this matter, we can agree to disagree. You believe Shanahan is a good personnel man. You could cite player X , Y and Z for it. I don't, I think he's horrible. I could cite players A, B and C. In the end, that argument will only become circular. My base reasoning here isn't to piss all over Shanahan and say he's a bad coach. I am saying - I don't think he's the right coach suited for RG3 and his long term health and success in Washington- I don't believe he can surround RG3 with elite personnel for the long haul to contend or save RG3's health from being one of the few weapons the Skins have offensively. - I believe he cares more about saving his job than considering RG3's long term health. I speak of mobility, not as a guy who will break out a 80 yeard TD run, but enough mobility for a guy to protect himself from an oncoming pass rush. - I believe from a personnel standpoint, Shanahan compromised the long term future of the Skins by selling the farm for RG3 to ensure he wouldn't eat a third losing season in a row and have to deal with Dan Snyder afterwards. I believe that cost will bear more heavily in later years compared to this year. I see RG3, even with Morris and hopefully a health Garcon around him, as someone who will have to consistently carry this offense and often use his legs to do it. And even with all the pro passing / QB safety rules, I see this kid getting his bell rung a lot. I see a kid who is going to miss chunks of the season on a regular basis for the kind of pounding he will take as a running QB1. And I see that all as a detriment to long term dynasty fantasy value. I respect your football opinion. Somehow I feel I've unintentionally pushed some button with you regarding Shanahan where this has all devolved into the equivalent of a prostate exam. We can agree to disagree and like I've always said on this board, time will tell. Time will tell which one of us was either right or wrong or both right and wrong.
You're a good guy, Gecko, and I usually appreciate your contrarian take. I often find myself agreeing with it, actually. Sometimes (Myra Kraft comes to mind), it seems like I might be the only one. I just don't see this as an "agree to disagree" situation. I think there are a lot of objective truths in this situation, and I don't think any of them are on your side. First, let's start with the personnel again. You say Shanahan's "horrible"- your word, not mine. Let's quantify "horrible", shall we? I think "horrible" has to mean at least bottom 10, if not bottom 5. So let's assume that were the case- if Shanahan were "horrible", what would we expect that to look like? What would a team look like after 14 years of a "horrible" personnel guy running the show? I would contend- and I don't think this is a stretch- that 14 years with a bottom 10 personnel guy would result in one of the 10 least talented teams in the league. So if Shanahan were "horrible", we would expect the Broncos to be one of the 10 least talented teams in the league. And if they were one of the 10 least talented teams, we would expect them to have one of the 10 worst records in the entire NFL from time to time. But that's not what we see. Only once did Denver finish with one of the 10 worst records, coming on the heels of back-to-back superbowls, and that was only after losing 3 potential HoFers, (4 if you count Atwater, which I don't), and turning to a brand new starting QB. And Denver still finished "just" 6-10. And their scoring differential (-4 points) was better than 11 other teams. So you mean to tell me that Shanahan was a HORRIBLE personnel guy, and he ran the controls for 14 years in Denver, and not once were they worse than "mildly below average"? That's unbelievable! And I mean that literally. It is literally impossible for me to believe that could be the case. You know what a team looks like after years of a "horrible" personnel guy? Look at the 0-16 Detroit Lions, not the 8-8 Denver Broncos. And those Broncos managed to remain consistently competitive despite the fact that, as you pointed out, the NFL draft is rigged to favor losers, and Denver was never a loser. Second, let's look at your assertion that Shanahan drafted Griffin to save his job. I find this claim laughable- you claim Shanahan needed a playoff berth to save his job, so he drafted a rookie and immediately named him a day one starter at QB. First off, that narrative is implausible enough on its face; how often in history has a rookie started from day one at QB and led his team to the playoffs? Second off, that narrative is flatly contradicted by later events- when a coach is desperately trying to win now at the expense of the future, tell me, what earthly reason could he possibly have for drafting a SECOND QB in the 4th? Of all the players on the board, Cousins probably had the absolute least to offer from a "win now" standpoint. The only possible reason to draft two QBs in the first four rounds is if you're going BPA, and BPA means that instead of focusing on immediate needs, you're taking a long view. Finally, your interpretation is contradicted by Shanahan's history. In the 2006 draft, Shanahan stunned the punditocracy by executing two trades to move up to 11 and select Jay Cutler. He was coming off a 13-3 season where his squad hosted the AFCCG and his starting QB, Jake Plummer (more on him in a minute), had made the pro bowl and led the league in int%. When asked why he did it, he said that his years working with Elway and Young showed him how important it was to have a franchise QB, and his years since Elway had shown him just how rare it was to be in a position to get one, so when that rare opportunity arose, you paid whatever it took to get him. Washington's acquisition of Griffin (and Cousins) fits far better with Shanahan's previous words and actions (when an opportunity arises to get a franchise signal caller, you do whatever it takes), and far worse with theories that he was simply trying to save his job. Circling back to Plummer for a second... compare his numbers in Denver to his numbers in Arizona sometime. The Denver numbers were top 10 good. The Arizona numbers were bottom 10 bad. A case could be made that they were actually top5/bottom5 (and I'd be happy to make it, if you want). This leaves us forced to concede one of two things (possibly both). Either Denver had an awful lot of supporting talent helping Plummer elevate his game... or they didn't, and Shanahan oversaw the single most impressive job of QB development in the history of the NFL. Plummer speaks very well to Shanahan as a personnel guy, and to Shanahan as a QB development guy. You can't overlook this. Anyway, aside over. Now, your third assertion is that Shanahan is leaving Griffin high and dry and will get him killed. I think there's a chance Griffin's body gets wrecked, but I don't pin it on Shanahan. Griffin is a special player. You don't get a special player and than tell him not to do the things that make him special. You don't tell Earl Campbell to run with a little less intensity. You don't tell Cam Newton to stop trying to push the pile in short yardage. You don't tell Jamaal Charles to stop cutting quite so hard. Griffin has Olympic-caliber speed, and taking it out of his game is like buying a Lamborghini and keeping it in the garage. You can absolutely teach him when and where to pick his spots, but I don't know why Shanahan wouldn't be the guy to do that. After all, he's the guy who taught two of the most celebrated running QBs of all time (Elway and Young) how to pick their spots. It's possible Griffin gets killed before he learns these things (although not likely- Vick and Cunningham hung around into their 30s, didn't they?), but that has nothing to do with Shanny. Mike Shanahan is exactly the guy Griffin owners should want running the show for the foreseeable future. You ask that we just agree to disagree on this, and if this were just a matter of opinion (Scarlett Johannson vs. Jessica Alba), I would be happy to. The problem is that I don't think this is just a matter of opinion- as I said, I think there are objective truths, and that they fall overwhelmingly on my side of the equation. It'd be like if we were arguing who was the better coach, Bill Walsh or George Seifert. Sometimes, "agree to disagree" just doesn't cut it.