Mike Shanahan has to win out the last two games of the 2011 season to pass the winning percentages racked up by Jim Zorn and Steve Spurrier during their two-year stints as Redskins coaches.
But as cruel as the standings have been to Shanahan’s reputation as a coach since he got here, the recent box scores have been kind.
On paper, it sure seems like the team he’s fielding, and even winning with in the Meadowlands, is nameless and headed for nowhere. You’d have to go back to the replacement Redskins that played during the 1987 NFL strike to find a roster with so few notable athletes or so bleak a future.
No quarterback on the team should be here beyond this season. John Beck and Rex Goodman are just latter-day Ed Rubberts and Tony Robinsons.
None of the top three receivers against New England or the Giants by yards—Donte Stallworth, Jabar Gaffney, Santana Moss, and David Anderson—will be around much longer. (Anthony Allen, anybody?)
They’re all ancient enough in football years to be cast off just for age at season’s end.
Perhaps someday one of the top two rushers in both games—rookies Roy Helu and Evan Royster—will make a name for themselves. But for now they’re far from household even in the home market.
On the other side of the ball, the box score ain’t too pretty, either. The Redskins’ leading tackler against New England and New York, as it is week after week, and the only candidate for postseason honors, was London Fletcher.
He will be 37 years old before the next training camp opens.
Taking it all in, and Shanahan’s coaxing a dominant performance out of this bunch of Redskins against the Giants could be mentioned alongise the Scabskins’ win over the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football some 24 years ago.
Joe Gibbs‘ reputation as a genius was etched in cement after that game. So was general manager Bobby Beathard‘s, for putting together a better roster of replacements than anybody else in the league.
Yet, it’s worth noting that almost nobody who took the field for the Redskins that night was still around when they made it to the Super Bowl.
What does current GM Bruce Allen do again?