Mike Shanahan was Ready to Leave Washington after 2012 Season

[Monkeydad]

I agree with Chico. If we can give Bruce Allen a chance next year with a full salary cap, he'll fix a lot of holes on this team. We have a very good, young core and can can be good for years to come once we get the supporting cast. It was impossible to build a competitive team with that cap penalty.

Special teams especially suffered. We couldn't afford to keep Lorenzo Alexander and that was a huge hit to that unit. We couldn't afford a solid #2 WR. We had to just live with the scrubs on the offensive line and at safety. Depth was another thing lost. Once we had a few injuries to guys like Carricker, Bowen, Thomas, there was simply no one behind them and our decent preseason depth chart was obliterated.

Disaster year but believe it or not, this team is in the right direction. It may not be an easy job, but we have some bright spots for the future.

Hopefully we'll switch back to a 4-3, using Kerrigan and Orakpo in their natural DE positions to do what they do best. We'll get a good complementary WR for Garcon. Griffin, Morris and Reed will continue to succeed.

An offensive line is one thing we've been missing since our great squad of Jon Jansen, Chris Samuels, Randy Thomas, Derrick Dockery and Ray Brown. Vinny seemed to completely disregard the need for it, thinking weapons alone can make a good offense. We just couldn't afford upgrades the past couple years. I fully expect an overhaul outside of Trent coming.