Do you suppose the Redskins front office delights in misdirecting fans and sports writers so we run off on tangents? Washington Redskins followers are convinced that quarterback Donovan McNabb is outta here after head coach Mike Shanahan pulled him in the last two minutes of the Detroit Lions game and benched him for the last three games of the season.
Well, hold your horses there, cowboy.
CSN Washington’s Kelli Johnson caught up with ‘Skins GM Bruce Allen Friday for a brief interview. Allen dropped two bombshells in a matter of fact way. First, Allen said they would do the McNabb trade again if they had to. Second, Allen said there was no clash between McNabb and offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan. See the story and video clip on DC Sports Bog.
Mmm, WHAT?
Redskins Hog Heaven questioned the notion that McNabb was a goner, not that we have inside information. It’s just that Coach Shanahan never actually said that McNabb was done for good. That and a whole list of things tells us that trading or releasing McNabb makes no sense.
McNabb is the only Redskins player voted by other NFL players as a Top 100 Player of 2011. No other Redskin will make the list to judge by hints dropped by the announcers over the last few weeks. THAT’s the player you are going to drop?
Even at age 34, McNabb is a better quarterback than any of the free agents available to join the team. We are speaking of the Matt Hasselbecks (age 35) and Marc Bulgers (age 34) of the NFL universe. Please do not bring up Kyle Boller (age 30) or Chad Pennington (age 34).
Any free agent the Redskins bring in faces the same transition to a new offense that McNabb has already done. That’s like “deja vu all over again.” (Yogi Berra) So we lose all the benefit of investing in McNabb just to do it again with someone else. Does anyone in Ashburn have a clue why the Redskins have had only two winning seasons since 2000?
McNabb is the best quarterback on the roster. Yes, that’s counting free agent Rex Grossman. When given the chance, Grossman was arguably more effective than McNabb in moving the ball and making quicker decisions. His 81.2 QB rating was well above his career average of 70.9. Unfortunately, his 55.6 percent completion percentage was no real improvement over his career average and not quite as good as McNabb’s (58.3). Nor was the bottom line of one win, two losses. McNabb’s performance wasn’t all on McNabb.
We are not going to use a news snippet as proof that McNabb is staying in Washington. It does say that perhaps we might possibly could be wrong to assume McNabb is done. Skepticism is always healthy when it comes to the Redskins.
We just don’t know anything until the coach speaks in something other than coachspeak.
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