Shanahan can show what team missed out on
Ex-Washington assistant has 49ers coming in at 5-0
ASHBURN, VA. — Kyle Shanahan’s voice floated from a speaker this week, filling a room at the Washington Redskins’ practice facility much the way it had bounced across the team’s meeting halls and coaches’ offices years before — firm, confident and loaded with millennial certainty. It was almost as if he had sneaked past the guards to toss a few last rocks through the windows of the men who never understood the genius of those lost days.
In a way he has already won the war he and his father, Mike, fought with Redskins owner Daniel Snyder and team president Bruce Allen. His San Francisco 49ers come to FedEx Field this weekend as one of the NFL’s best teams, at 5-0 and in first place in the NFC West. Snyder and Allen’s team sits near the league’s bottom, lurching in lost circles, searching for a replacement for Mike Shanahan’s replacement.
Many around the NFL expect Kyle Shanahan will try to bury the Redskins this Sunday, splattering his vengeance across FedEx’s scoreboards. His words seemed to reflect this standing as they spilled from the speaker during a conference call with Washington media members. Much of what he said was deferential, complimentary to many in a city he says he enjoyed. But then he launched a shot. It was delivered subtly yet still roared into the building with a vicious, searing precision.
“I think it’s pretty easy not to make [Sunday’s game] personal,” he said. “The guys who get personal with it don’t play in the game.”
More than five years have passed since the Mike and Kyle Shanahan years in Ashburn, Virginia, a 24-40 debacle wrapped around the Robert Griffin III fiasco and cocooned by the 140-185-1 calamity of Snyder’s ownership — enough time for Kyle Shanahan to become a Super Bowl offensive coordinator in Atlanta and a head coach in San Francisco. Enough time, too, for the NFL to see that whatever Kyle was doing deep in those team meeting rooms with his friends — all in their 20s and 30s — was genius.
And as Snyder and Allen try to start the Redskins again, opening a search for the ninth coach of Snyder’s regime, their pursuit will be clouded by the fact that they had not only Kyle Shanahan in their building but Sean McVay, the Super Bowl coach of the Rams, and new Packers Coach Matt LaFleur as well. While many teams are hunting for the so-called “Next Sean McVay,” Snyder and Allen are going to be haunted that the real McVay was working right down the hall.
Because of this, many executives on other teams think Snyder and Allen will have to look hard at their offensive coordinator, 34-year-old Kevin O’Connell, whom former coach Jay Gruden had to promote two straight years to keep other teams from snatching him away.
“[O’Connell is] in a good position considering the circumstances there,” said one executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a frank opinion about another team’s coaching situation.
“I think that’s a huge factor,” another executive said. “Can you afford to risk letting another guy like that get away?”
With the departure of Gruden, O’Connell is the Redskins’ play caller. It is an audition of sorts, although Snyder and Allen have not said publicly if O’Connell will be considered for the head coach’s job. O’Connell has always deflected questions about someday coaching a team, saying last summer, “You’ve got to be ready for when the time’s right.”
This is something the 39-year-old Shanahan doesn’t have to worry about anymore. But his experience with the Redskins and the fact he has won and seems happier since could impact the thinking of any young assistant who might be courted by Washington. When asked on the conference call what advice he would give a young coach being pursued by the Redskins, Shanahan picked his words carefully.
“Just look into it, see what the situation is and who you want to work for,” he said. “I mean, anytime you get opportunities, you’ve got to look into it. But I’m not there, and I don’t know how it is right now.”