By now, you’ve heard all about the alleged wristband incident between Mike and Kyle Shanahan and Donovan McNabb. Long story short: the Shanahans wanted McNabb to wear a wristband containing a playsheet to help the offense run more smoothly. McNabb refused, not wanting to ruin his image, or so the story goes.
There’s since been a debate as to whether or not this story is true. But here’s a better question:
Does it even matter now?
I understand that this story reveals just a sliver of the mistrust that must have existed between the Shanahan’s and McNabb, but is this one tale that big of a deal?
I’m not going to debate whether or not it’s true. That’s not for me to say at this point. But even if McNabb put on the wristband, would the Redskins have magically finished the 2010 season with a 10-6 record? Probably not. The team had a lot more issues last season than whether or not McNabb was willing to 'ruin his image'. How about the pourous offensive line? How about the lack of playmakers? What about the 3-4 defense that featured more miscasts than fits? The McNabb drama certainly played it's part in last season's struggles, but it wasn't the sole reason why the team finished 6-10.
The only thing this story and the subsequent reaction truly illustrated is this: The NFL lockout needs to end. Immediately.
The current labor situation has handcuffed every team, but no team might be more handcuffed by the labor strife than the Redskins. This is precisely one of the reasons why. The first order of business for this team once the lockout ends will likely be to ship McNabb out of town one way or another. But until then, they are forced to sit by idly as stories like this one spread and get more and more media attention. That's what happens when there's a lockout and teams aren't allowed to make personnel moves.
Stories like this will come out and damage a team, but they will be powerless to resolve the situation until the lockout is over (ie Carson Palmer's 'retirement' situation). So in the meantime, of course, the Redskins will just simply downplay the story as they hope and pray for the court system to end the lockout so they can just move on.
While this story could have been more relevant if shared a few months ago, the bottom line is it simply sheds light on something fans media already knew before it came out: Donovan McNabb and the Shanahans didn’t have a good relationship. So even though this new gossip provides some new "juicy" details on the now frayed relationship, it doesn’t change things for the Redskins moving forward.
At the end of the day, McNabb will be gone, and the team will move forward at the QB position. Whether or not they will publicly admit that the entire McNabb experiment as a mistake remains to be seen. Seeing as how the Redskins are going to dump a veteran quarterback they traded for just over a year ago, I think that’d count as a mistake.The point is that they made a mistake, realized (internally, anyway) that a mistake was made and will most likely resolve the situation once football resumes.
So while everyone is arguing about whether or not the story is true, here's hoping that the lockout ends so the team and fanbase can just move on from this whole ordeal. Not only so that the team can try and figure out the answer to their long-standing quarterback dilemma, but so we can all just stop talking about McNabb's brief, but drama-filled tenure here in D.C.