The Washington Redskins finished in last place in the NFC East last season. While the addition of Robert Griffin III brought plenty of excitement to the nation’s capital, few experts believed the Redskins would win the NFC East crown in the rookie’s first year as the team’s starting quarterback. Offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan never cared what the so-called experts thought.
As D.C. Sports Bog reminded us on Wednesday, Shanahan gave an emotional speech to the team before its loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the final game of the season last year. His message was simple — next year is our year.
“Hey, about an hour ago, their D coordinator told us, told [offensive line coach Chris] Foerster, that if the Giants would have lost last week, they were in the playoffs,” young Shanahan said. “He didn’t mention that they still had to beat us today. [Bleep] him, [bleep] these guys, In 2012 the Redskins are gonna be the NFC East champions, and that starts right [bleeping] today.”
Did he actually believe it? We’ll never know for sure, but Shanahan certainly looks pretty good right about now. Rex Grossman predicted the same would happen last season, but he ended up being very, very wrong. Of course, that was before RG3.
Griffin is obviously the big difference-maker, but perhaps there was some truth to what Grossman said about the Redskins at the conclusion of the 2011 season. Shanahan had no way of knowing for sure if Washington would be able to draft Griffin, but he saw the same potential Grossman saw. We love bashing people who make ridiculous predictions that never come true, so it’s only fair to give credit where credit is due. Shanahan was right, and as a result the Redskins are contending for a Super Bowl.
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