My evaluation of Shanahan starts now

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I think though if Shanahan was a half-decent head coach, any on-field issues related to Zorn being over his head should have been corrected by 2010. Some were (penalties for example), I think, but for a guy who we are giving a ton of credit to for making the roster better/young, there sure was many millions of dollars given to Larry Johnson and Donovan McNabb to be old.

There was also a lot of rebuilding moves that Shanahan opted not to make in the name of winning right away. DeAngelo Hall is STILL here. Santana Moss got paid with younger, more talented receivers out there. Albert Haynesworth did make the 2010 team, sort of. We traded a sixth round pick plus a useful piece for Tim Hightower. The contract standoff with London Fletcher (which the Redskins did --it should be noted-- win) turned me off a bit. And now with RG3, we know exactly what the top of every draft Shanahan will make as Redskins head coach will look like.

I do think a big part of the plan has been to get younger, but the thing we can say about the 2012 team is that every piece Mike Shanahan intended to put in place while coach of the Redskins is already in place. I don't think anyone, including coach Shanahan, thinks this is a complete team. But I think he really believes it's a good team, or he wouldn't have built it this way.

I'm not outright rejecting the perspective that Shanahan made the Redskins younger with the intent of winning over a long span of time as opposed to right away. That might well prove to be true. If so, it's almost certainly going to require someone else to come in here and finish what he started.