Are we being fair to Kyle Shanahan?

[NLC1054]

By the way, when I saw "we", I'm generalizing, as some people like him more than others.

But I see a lot of criticism of Kyle, if not around here, at other forums, certainly in the media where he more or less get destroyed on a regular basis. But I'm trying to figure out if the criticism of him is fair or not.

When we talk about what Kyle Shanahan had to work with, he was just as hamstrung, if not more hamstrung, by the same issues that plagued McNabb.

People complained about him not running the ball enough, when neither of his two starting caliber running backs could stay healthy.

People complained about him not using enough 2 tight end sets, when they used 2 tight end sets a lot. Now, one tight end was usually kept in to block, but when I look back at the last game of the season, I do see players where Cooley would be split out white and Fred would be lined up at tight end and they were both running routes.

People complain that offense wasn't creative enough, but when the opportunity presented itself, I thought the play calls could be creative, like motion Banks into the backfield and the running a playaction bootleg off it, trying the Wildcat.

But he had to deal with the same problems McNabb did and then some. Problems with the offensive line. Having all of four viable pass catching weapons, and then because of the problems with the offensive line, he couldn't use one of them most of the time, so you had three. On a good week. His running backs couldn't stay healthy.

And then, he had a quarterback who either couldn't operate, didn't understand or didn't want to understand his offense, and didn't want to tweak---not drastically change, but just tweak---some of his fundamentals.

But it seems like Kyle gets a brunt of the flack for the anemic offense. After being a wunderkind in Houston, all the sudden he's this inept tool who disrespected Donovan McNabb and ruined the offense who's career in coaching is probably ruined and the only reason he's around is because he's Mike's son, when he'd been in Houston for...what, five years before Mike ever hired him?

It just seems like people have unfairly piled onto Kyle for things Kyle couldn't fix.

Am I wrong here? Did I miss something?