Mike and Kyle Shanahan, the head coach and offensive coordinator of the Washington Redskins, are notorious for being a bit inflexible with what they want their players to do. I get it. It hurt them when dealing with Donovan McNabb, there's no doubt about it.
But this overreaction by Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk is hilarious. Florio noted the end of a radio interview with Rex Grossman, in which Grossman said this.
"During the course of a regular game, Kyle Shanahan wants you to run the offense exactly how he wants it, down to the amount of hitches you take to go through your progressions," Grossman told Zig Fracassi and Solomon Wilcots, per Dan Steinberg. "And if you really study that and rep that in practice, then it becomes a lot easier during the game. You're not thinking as much as your body just goes through the progressions. That's some of the things that's really helped me start the second half of my career, and I feel like I'm a much better quarterback because of that."
Grossman is very clearly crediting Kyle Shanahan for making him "a much better quarterback." Florio's response is to destroy Kyle Shanahan for being a control freak.
In the 1970s, the media and the fans bemoaned the trend away from quarterbacks calling their own plays, not just as audibles but in the huddle. The younger Shanahan's attitude confirms that the trend away from quarterback decision-making has resulted in today's OCD coaches want their signal-callers to receive signals and follow orders like robots, both before and during the play.
If nothing else, it's now clear why the Donovan McNabb experiment didn't work. And it's amazing that the Shanahans ever thought that it would. An established, franchise quarterback will be the last player to ever allow himself to be grossly micromanaged by a silver-spoon assistant coach three years younger than the established, franchise quarterback.
Again, sure, Kyle Shanahan didn't handle the Donovan McNabb situation perfectly, but Florio is using a quote from a radio interview with a different player that is praising Kyle Shanahan as evidence for calling Shanahan a control freak. Just think about that for a second.