Quote:
Originally Posted by NC_Skins
I don't think we are ever going to agree with the "there were better options" part. Sure, but many of those options weren't that big of a upgrade and the cost for that minor upgrade wasn't worth it.
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Which is defensible, but the fact that the Redskins really didn't even consider other options was delusional.
Understand that factually, Mike Shanahan has done both of these things in two seasons:
1) Dealt Jason Campbell for a fourth round pick and acquired Donovan McNabb for a second round pick and a fourth round pick.
OR gave up draft pick value because his evaluation of the situation here was that the QB situation wasn't adequate.
2) Traded Donovan McNabb for a sixth round pick w/a conditional sixth.
OR traded away a player he was admitting a mistake on because he evaluated his QB depth as MORE than adequate.
In the winter of 2010, he decided that the Redskins didn't have a starting caliber quarterback on their roster, and made a trade for one. In the summer of 2011, he decided that the Redskins had totally solved their QB situation, at least in the short term, if he could just get that McNabb guy out.
No matter where you believe the mistake was made on McNabb, he could not have been correct on the quality of his existing roster in both 2010 and 2011. The ONLY thing he changed was that he acquired McNabb. Nothing else changed from the roster he inherited. Either that, or his standards for what a QB were coming over from Denver dropped significantly when he got here.
Grossman was a backup QB in 2010, and was a starting QB in 2011? Really? No one could believe that could they? No, what changed re: McNabb was Beck. Beck went from a roster filler to a desired veteran. Grossman was still Grossman the whole time. Beck was the acquisition that made McNabb expendable.
John Beck was judged to be a better option at quarterback than any other option. It wasn't that the options weren't there, it was that the Redskins preferred Beck.
Grossman being named starter (first or second time, w/e) was the second admission of error at the same position in the Shanahan era. Again, not a wrong decision given what Beck showed, but it was more or less a two-strike foul tip.