Quote:
Originally Posted by Paintrain
See if it's Shanahan I think the transition will be minimal. The offense he runs is also an offshoot of the Walsh WCO that Zorn & Lewis run via Holmgren. The players I'm concerned with are the WR group (Thomas, Kelly, Mitchell) and Davis because they've learned one offense and would have to reset after just starting to show they're getting comfortable. We're probably looking at a new QB, new RB and a new RT after this season so there will be some learning curve.
On our '10 projected (as I see it) OL there will only be two Gibbs/Saunders holdovers in Rabach and Dockery. Levi Jones came from Cincy and Mike Williams came from Buffalo. Unless we completely reset by letting them all go, there's not going to be a true WCO line for a couple of years.
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Pain, i agree with everything you say there. Shanahan is not my first (or second, third, or forth) choice to be our next HC, but that is the main positive I see with him taking over. If we go with anything other than a WCO style offense, then all the progress we've seen our receivers (and even Campbell) have made over the past two years will be for nothing. With Shanahan, we have a high probabilty of being competetive sooner - although i think there's a "lower ceiling" with Shanahan than there would be if we just blew the whole thing up and started building from scratch.
And while the offense could greatly benefit from Shanahan, our defense would no doubt suffer. If we went with a smaller name HC, he would be more inclined to to keep our defense in tact. Shanahan's likely going to bring in entirely new coaching staffs on BOTH sides of the ball. Given the relative success of our defense, perhaps Shanahan could be convinced to just promote Jerry Gray to DC, but I wouldnt count on it.