Rex Grossman on NFL Radio Sunday

[NLC1054]

Originally Posted by fanarchist

If Mike and Kyle pride themselves on having the innate ability to recognize and systemically implement QB talent why were these widely preexisting deficiencies in McNabb's game not addressed during the inception of the brianstorming sessions that ultimately led to them trading for him?

If recollection serves, although time does tend to distort perception, at the end of the Texans game McNabb threw a perfectly timed ball, in stride, over his left shoulder to Joey Galloway for a TD and the early microcosm for the entire season crept in and was abruptly stamped. DROP! As far as I'm concerned McNabb threw a game winning pass. What happened on the opposite end of the wire can not be anchored to McNabb, but instead belongs in the unwelcoming, arthritic palms of Galloway and possibly the mastermind who decided Galloway still had a couple gallons left in the tank.

Drops from Cooley. Drops from Moss. I can't remember the opponent but I distinctly recall Fred Davis dropping a TD pass. Armstrong was, at best, 60/40 in catchable targets with McNabb at the helm. All of those drops have to manifest themselves in some way. For us it was 3rd down conversion percentage.

I'll chalk up the mistimed long balls to McNabb's lack of comfortability with the timing of a new offense. The dude ran the same scheme his entire career before coming to the Redskins. The least you could give the guy is a single season grace period to become more entrenched and acclimated to timing with new receivers, an overall understanding of the system and whats expected of him in terms of progression so he is playing without thinking. Reading deep to short as opposed to short to deep. Bad habits die hard and I believe that was a major contributor to McNabb's inconsitency.

I understand it's a "win now" league, but regardless of that nomenclature we haven't been able to manipulate, from the FO down, that famous football colloquialism. So I suggest patience as a possible solution and I get chastised because of a simple indepentant belief that McNabb dosen't give us the best chance to win. Grossman was somewhat effective in the limited action he accumulated. His completion percentage was average and he threw 4 ints in 3 games. He also lost 3 out of 4 games in which he could have been a determining factor in the outcome. And yes I'm including the benching and fumble return for a TD in Detroit. The single game that he won was decided in overtime. I agree that McNabb isn't the QB that gives us the best chance to win league wide, but on our roster to date, in my opinion, he is, unquestionably, the best QB currently employed by the Washington Redskins and between Beck, Grossman, and McNabb I believe McNabb does gives us the best chance to win.

But all indications were that it wasn't just the on the field stuff. I'm not chastising you, I'm just saying, it's not just the team around him. It's not just the drops.

It was the way he played, but probably more so, it was the way he acted. If you know Mike Shanahan, you know how big a deal practice is to him, that he's a no hit guy who takes care of his players, but he wants the tempo of practice to be good as well.

He spoke of having those days in practice where the ball never hit the ground. All indications are that they never had that. Then there's issues with him coming out either last or late for practice. Than there's the wristband stuff that's pretty much been widely confirmed by anyone who has a source in the building.

So it seems to me that Mike Shanahan (and Mike alone; as someone pointed out, Kyle didn't think he'd be a good fit in the offense and was against the trade to begin with) thought he was getting one player, and ended up with another. He thought he was getting a consummate pro, the hardest worker on the team, and a playmaker that had all things he wanted.

What he seemed to get was a slightly image conscious, kinda lazy (or at least not up to Shanahan's standards) quarterback who benefited greatly from being in a system in which Andy Reid allowed him to improvise more than he was required to be precise, and despite having a lot of time to get better, he either couldn't process it or didn't put the work in to do it.

I also don't really buy that Kyle didn't do enough to try and maximize what Donovan was good at. All these screen passes and the checkdowns to the running backs seem like it was "give him a high read, a low read, and then a checkdown". That's pretty much what they ran with him in Philly.

It was a mutual thing, this whole nasty break up. But Donovan had his fair share of problems, and it wasn't all drops by wide receivers. I think anyone will tell you that it's hard to catch a football that's thrown at your knees.

If anything, keeping Donovan despite all the problems would be more of a "win now" move than seeing what they have in John Beck and Rex. Best case scenario, they have a quarterback that can right the ship while they replenish positions of need on the team. Worst case, they just draft a quarterback next year.