Fred Davis Done for Season. Welcome Back Cooley

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by Mechanix544

I would think to prove your point, being a lawyer and all, you would know that an argument like that, if you are going to try and make it, holds little water. A much better argument would to take their out of division schedules during that time span, and see how they measure up. But I'd wager that might not support your argument, maybe I'm wrong, but I believe it would be a much better barometer of success, ie "actually being a good division", especially when alot of people consider the AFC West to be kinda crappy, especially when Shanahan was churning out near .500 ball in denver from around 2005 on. Another possible barometer would be his playoff wins. 1 in 14 years.............ughhhhhhhhhhh

BTW, shanny is 35 - 45 his last 80 games. Not that great.

Let the flaming begin.

First, aren't you the guy who blasted me for being too 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 [EDIT: appearing in] 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?