Originally Posted by JoeRedskin
First, aren't you the guy who blasted me for being to lawyerly in my responses??
Second, and in short, I simply didn't intend to spend much time arguing Shanny's past b/c I think it, at best, only tangentially relevant to his current ability to succeed. As to his past, believe it or not, I think it cuts both ways. He has had both success and failure. In addition, I had, and still have, serious concerns about his ability to construct a defense and his ability as a personnel guy. To me, those were the cause of his ultimate failure in Denver - along with his dictatorial ego.
With that said, however, to baldly assert that Shanny's record was built on a cake AFC West schedule without citing records, opponents or other criteria, as was done, struck me as wrong. I remember: (1) KC as being pretty tough under Schotty and Vermeil, (2) SD having LT on the field for some of that time, and (3) Oakland winning a SB somewhere in there. I simply did some quick checking on pro football reference and found, as I said, several years where the division had multiple 10+ win teams, which seemed to me to be an indicator that it wasn't quite the pushover Goat and others seem to think it was. In fact, one year (96 I think) no one in their division had a losing record (two 8-8's).
Was the AFC West a powerhouse top to bottom the entire time Shanny was there? No. But neither, as was implied, did Shanny build his record playing the 2012 Jax Jaguars. It was a good division that had solid teams. Shanahan's early successes, and again later with Plummer, give some evidence that he has the ability to succeed against solid competition. Can he still do so? He hasn't shown it yet.
Lawyerly enough for you?
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