Analyzing Mike Shanahan at the Midway Point

[Ruhskins]

I gave Shanahan a "D" and here is my humble opinion as to why.

I know what we were getting when we got Shanahan. And unfortunately it wasn't someone that was going to completely rebuild and start from scratch, and sacrifice a losing season in order to be better in the future. I know what I just said is easier said than done (hell just about everything we say here is), but I still think we got someone that wants to try to win now, while trying to rebuild (which I think is a bit impossible).

Now, Shanahan's accomplishments with the team should not be overlooked. He and Bruce Allen have brought professionalism to the front office. I think they have been a welcome change in attitude and discipline to the team, that was lacking after two horrendous years with Zorn. However, I think this is the key to evaluate Shanahan. Zorn's short tenure was awful, as was Vinny's long tenure. And I feel that as fans it is easy to criticize any criticism of Shanahan, because compared to what we had he is leaps and bounds better.

I also like to mention that I think Shanahan's work with the Redskins alumni was genius. He drafted our Left Tackle of the future, and made some nice acquisitions that are working out well. The change to the 3-4 I see both as a positive and a negative. You can't ignore the fact that the team is taking the ball away more often and led the league recently in takeaways. The defense is more aggressive and physical than it ever was with Blache. And I think it has brought the best out of Landry, Orakpo, and Hall.

To wrap up, here is my criticism. I feel that the Haynesworth drama and the latest McNabb drama could have been handled differently. I really hope he didn't spend two draft picks to evaluate McNabb. If so, he should've just used those picks to improve the offense in other ways, and stick with Campbell. We probably would have a losing record right now, but for the sake of rebuilding I would be fine with this (probably not, but in the long run yes). I feel that the change to the 3-4 was unnecessary. While yes, it may be a trend, we didn't have the personnel for it and that wasn't the biggest issue with our team. I feel that any efforts into change our defense into a 3-4, should've gone into improving the offense. And improve it not for the sake of winning right away, but maybe set it up to win in the future.

So we move on to the second half of the season. I truly hope that at the end of the season I am eating crow and taking everything that I say back. But at this moment, I feel that we are middle of the road team, with a lot of question marks for the future.