Quote:
Originally Posted by artmonkforhallofamein07
Goat, I remember when Shanny was fired in Denver. He was quoted as saying something to the affect of "Now that I have a chmapioship conteding offense I need to get a defense and start contending for a championship again".
That would leave me to believe that his next steps in completing his 5 year plan will be to stack the defense the next two years while tweaking the offense to create a team capable of accomplishing that goal.
Yes the team had a defense that was ranked back then, but it was over paid veterans who were nearing the end of thier careers. The defense was going to need an overhaul soon, and Shanny wanted the 3-4. He took something that wasn't broke at the time but was heading there and started to reconstruct it. It obviously needs more work, but once again teams aren't built in an off season
|
Good post. Shanny had some solid defenses between Elway's retirement and his own ousting, but
most Denver fans (all the ones I know) don't believe he could put it all together to be a contender after Elway. And most fans believe that had everything to do with Mike taking an ever larger role in personnel decisions, to the point where he was basically wearing both hats.
I think those criticisms are accurate and justified but there's always more to the story. Shanahan/Elway never faced the kind of high powered offenses and defenses the following decade produced in NE, Indy, and (begrudgingly) Pittsburgh. I always thought Shanahan's teams were on the sloppy side, just as we see today with more penalties than any other team etc etc. But for that brief time in Denver he had a team that was unbelievably talented, and again it was a rather low point elsewhere in the NFL.
Today, Mike is still wearing both hats. Some supporters say we have little talent three years in (which always makes me wonder why the eff they're supporters). I think we have some good talent. I thought we had enough talent to finish 8-8 minimum this season, and that was before we saw RG play.