ASHBURN,Va - Washington Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan spoke to reporters Thursday for the first time since the team's announcement that their training camp will be held in Richmond starting 2013.
"I’m excited," he said. "It gives the players a chance to spend three weeks together."
Traveling away from team headquarters for training camp is something that Shanahan and the Redskins have been exploring for the past two years, with the primary goal being to promote team camaraderie.
"When you’re a couple hours away, as compared to ten minutes away, when you do have the kids and you do have a lot of friends, it’s so much easier to bond with your teammates....When you go there for three weeks, there is no going home."
In most of his years as the Denver Broncos head coach, Shanahan took his team to the University of Northern Colorado, something he felt paid off for team unity.
"In my experience through the years -- even though it's only three weeks -- it's really a great time to bond together and for teammates to get a chance to know each other."
The Redskins also announced that renovations will be made to their Ashburn facility. After the addition of an indoor practice facility, the team chose to continue to upgrade their current headquarters rather than potentially move to Washington D.C. or Bowie, Maryland.
"You want a state of the art weight room. You want a state of the art meeting rooms. The technology that some of these teams have, we want to have that ability as well."
"We want free agents to come here and say ‘Hey, what a great facility.'"
Shanahan said he's not sure when the renovations will begin.