I remember a lot of the same hand-wringing when Norv was here. Should he stay or should he go?
Well, in the end he needed to go. The fact the Redskins didn't do a very good job of replacing him and allowing that coach a legitimate chance to succeed is another point of discussion.
But the ultimate failure of Norv to successfully navigate other head coaching opportunities in the league points to the accuracy of the initial judgment.
In this case we are talking about a 61 year old coach whose greatest moment of glory came when Bill Clinton was still President. That was awhile ago
Shanahan in some ways reminds me of other formerly successful coaches that took other jobs only to appear lost and beyond their primes - Mike Ditka in New Orleans, Jimmy Johnson in Miami, George Seifert in Carolina, Steve Mariucci in Detroit.
Shanahan has been trying to figure out how to crack the 'nut' of implementing his son's offensive system and his own beloved 3-4 defense for almost 4 seasons and at 3-10 it all seems a mess.
The fact he went with Rex Grossman and John Beck for half of 2010 and all of 2011 as the starting quarterback set this team back quite a bit.
After two years the team had 11 wins and 21 losses and few core players added to the roster.
Then there was the trade of 4 high picks for Griffin and the salary cap penalty.
But make no mistake, at the end of the 2011 season not much visible progress had been made in those first 2 years.
Blaming everything on the cap penalty is just misdirection.