ASHBURN, Va - Mike Shanahan spoke for the first time publicly since Jabar Gaffney told media outlets that the Washington Redskins are trying to trade him.
Here's what Shanahn had to say about why he team is looking to trade their leading receiver from last season:
"Anytime you sign a guy like Pierre Garcon and Josh Morgan and you got a guy like Leonard Hankerson that - even though he played one game - we really think he has an upside. [When] you have a guy that really played as well and as hard as a guy like Jabar Gaffney did last year, [with] almost a thousand yards and he came in and played exceptionally well, I believe I owe it to him to give him a chance to look around the league to check his options. He's a veteran player who gave me everything that he had last year, and had a heck of a year. But he also understands that we've got three guys that we've signed, relative to Hankerson, Morgan and Pierre Garcon that we're looking to come in here and play a significant role. So I wanted him and his agent to have a chance to take a look and [see] if there's a better situation for him in the National Football League."
When asked about whether or not Gaffney's Twitter tirade was the main cause for his pending departure:
"I have not really got into detail about [the Twitter incident]. I know he was very troubled about it. I'm not going to go through our conversation. But he was very upset with what happened with Twitter. That was not the deciding factor."