In a press conference just under two months ago, Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan danced around the question of whether his team was "rebuilding." It was comical, actually. He clearly wanted to say it, but realized he couldn't.
But as it turned out, all it took for Shanahan to open up was a few more games. On Monday, following the Redskins' 33-26 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, Shanahan surprised many by admitting this rebuilding project that he doesn't want to admit is a rebuilding project is taking longer than he originally thought.
Shanahan was asked the question specifically by Mike Jones of the Washington Post and gave this answer. (Via 106.7 The Fan audio).
"Oh yeah, a lot longer than I first anticipated," he said. "We had less depth than I thought. We were a little older at a few different positions and I thought we'd keep those players a lot longer than we did."
Shanahan quickly tried to spin this back as a good thing, saying the revelation he just gave is "not a negative." But still, the damage had been done, so to speak. Truthfully, most Redskins fans are probably happy to hear Shanahan admit he overestimated the talent on the 2010 squad he inherited.