SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2010
KLMNO PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL Shanahan back in control, which is just how he likes it
Elway. The constant moves exhausted his
savings. Shanahan was so strapped for money that he had to ask for an advance on his Raiders salary to put a down payment on a house. “When you’re 35 and still living week by week on your paycheck, money is obviously not your priority,” he says. “It probably made him stronger to go
through something like that,” Peggy says. “You win from negatives, too. It was funny. Sometimes when bad things hap- pen, great things are right around the corner, and that’s how Mike has always looked at it.”
Shanahan landed with the San
Francisco 49ers, at the time the greatest franchise in sports, and the place that finally shaped him into a winning head coach. Coach Bill Walsh and Vice Presi- dent Carmen Policy had modeled the team on the most successful firms in Silicon Valley, and the franchise was the process of winning five Super Bowls in 15 years. The 49ers taught him organization. Shanahan discovered that every offen- sive game plan they had used for years, with accompanying film, was neatly filed. He dived into the archives joyfully. The 49ers had met theirmatch in Shana- han’s work habits and attention to detail. Quarterback Steve Young nicknamed him “Mister Let’s Do It Again,” because he insisted on rehearsing a play until it was almost mechanistic. The result was a Super Bowl Trophy in 1994, with anMVP award for Young, and a head coaching offer for Shanahan from the Denver Broncos.He’dbeenanunderstudy for the last time.
Organizational skills T
he philosophy Shanahan is imple- menting with the Redskins is es- sentially the same one he brought
to Denver in 1995, when he took over a 7-9 team that was aging and weak on both sides of the ball, and transformed it into Super Bowl champions in just three seasons. The soaring success of the Bron- cos, and Shanahan’s electrifying partner- ship with Hall of Fame quarterback Elway, earned him his reputation as an arch-strategist. But his teams were as bruising and disciplined as they were elegant. “I watched him in Denver, and it wasn’t just X’s and O’s,” Kyle says. “It was howto change the whole atmosphere in a building.” Shanahan’s motto is, “Sweat the small
stuff. . . . You do that, then the big things take care of themselves,” he says. The revitalization in Denver started
with small things. He coordinated the clocks in the building and instituted a schedule of steep fines if players were even a minute late.The first time a player was tardy it cost him $200, then $400, then $800, then $1600, and $3200. “Sooner or later the players start coming in on time,” he noted in “Think Like A Champion.” Shirts had to be tucked in, even in practice, and hand towels had to be a certain length. Every play had to be conducted at top speed. Slowly, the air in the locker room
changed. Skepticism and complaints gave way to grudging optimism. “When people see that he’s a man of his word, you start gaining respect,” says former running back Terrell Davis. “He’s de- manding, but he’s not asking for a lot. If you don’t respectMike, or don’t like him, it’s because you’ve never been held to a standard.” Shanahan cleansed the roster of the
careless or apathetic, or players who simply didn’t meet his level of meticu- lous commitment. He stocked it with playerswhowere strikingly similar to the kind he had been himself, somewhat overlooked, not highly regarded, butwho played as if their lives depended on the score. Draft status meant nothing: he cut wide receiver Mike Pritchard, a first- rounder in 1991, in order to hold on to guys like Rod Smith, who wasn’t even drafted but seemed to know every posi- tion on the field as well as his own, and Ed McCaffrey, a wide receiver who had been cut by the New York Giants and a reserve with the 49ers. “We thought of ourselves as football
players rather than receivers, and Mike rewards players with that mentality,” says McCaffrey, who made the Pro Bowl in 1998. By that season, the Broncos didn’t
have a single first-round pick starting on offense other than Elway. “It was an ‘if-you-build-it-they-will-come’ thing,” says defensive tackle Trevor Pryce, who earned time in Shanahan’s doghouse but eventually became a Pro Bowler. “Those who remain will be champions.” Shanahan demanded from them, but
he spoiled them, too. He catered break- fasts and lunches and hired masseuses to travel with them.He showed his appreci- ation with small comforts, like empty seats next to them on flights so they could stretch out.He gave each player his own room on the road, sparing them the irritation ofroommates, and prepaid two free movies for them. Between 1996 and 1998, the Broncos
went 46-10 and set an NFL record for victories. But sometimes it was all a bit much. In
1999, he levied a heavy fine against Davis for missing a curfew on a road trip — even though Davis never left the hotel, and was on injured reserve with a season-ending knee injury. He’d made the trip just for moral support. “Wow, Mike, you’re taking this thing
too far,” Davis told Shanahan. Shanahan listened and eventually agreed to drop
JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST
Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, center, attends the news conference announcingMike Shanahan’s hiring. At right is Peggy Shanahan, who said she was ready for her husband to go back to work after he suggested ways to do household errands.
“The world he stepped into, the riches and the success he’s had, it’s just a different world than what he came from. Work, that’s all he’s done.”
—Adam Schefter, ESPN analyst and Shanahan friend
the price. But he still fined Davis. “You kind of expect that,” Davis says.
“You know who you’re dealing with.” In retrospect, the intensity Shanahan
brought to those years was probably unsustainable. There are a lot of theories about why the Broncos went into a decline after 1999. Elway retired and Davis was unable to recover from his leg injuries. Shanahan, in control of person- nel, never was able to find the talent he had early. The Broncos remained a reli- ably high-level team, making seven play- off appearances overall in Shanahan’s tenure. But they won just one postseason game in 10 years, reaching the 2005 AFC championship game. When they col- lapsed to 8-8 in 2008 and failed to reach the playoffs for the third straight year, it cost him his job. According to Shanahan, the slump
was mainly due to a staggering run of injuries: he started 13 rookies and lost 16 players to injury in his last season, including seven running backs. But some complacency, personnel mistakes, and poor defense — he relieved three differ- ent defensive coordinators — may have had something to do with it. Davis theorizes that perhaps Shanahan be- came a little stale, his players a little sloppy. At 14 years, he was tied for the longest-tenured head coach in the NFL. “This league, there is a shelf life for
coaches,”Davis says. “Andwhenyou hear the same things over and over and over and over, it’s kind of hard. You say, ‘Ahhhh we heard this before.’ That defi- nitely could have been the case.” Nevertheless, the decision by Broncos
JOEL RICHARDSON FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
CoachMike Shanahan talks with his sonKyle, the Redskins’ offensive coordinator who sawhis father move the family six times by the time he was 15 years old. “He was going to be content with being a PE teacher,” the younger Shanahan said.
ownerPat Bowlen to firehimwas “shock- ing,” Shanahan says. He thought he was set for life.He had begun construction on a 35,000-square-foot home that included a six-car garage, bowling alley and rac- quetball court.Andhe believed that if the Broncos could stay healthy, he could build a Super Bowl quality team again. “I felt so good about it,” he says. “And that was why it was shocking. I was disap- pointed that I didn’t get to fulfill that.” Still Shanahan was luckier than most coaches, he realized.Hewaswell off, with three years remaining on a contract that was to pay him between $6.5 million and $7 million a season. He didn’t have to rush to find a newjob.He could afford to do something he never had before: take time off.He could sleep in, take Peggy on a family vacation toMexico, catch up on his reading. He could see, for the first time since he was 14, what it was like not to work. It was hardly the worst fate. “I think as you get older you get more
mature and you walk in other peoples shoes more,” he says. “When you’re younger you’re so focused on you, that you don’t understand that, hey there’s a world out there that has a lot going on, and they really don’t care what I’m doing.” One afternoon not long after he was
fired, Shanahan went to lunch with his friend Adam Schefter, the ESPN analyst whoco-authored his book. “What are you going to do now?” Schefter asked him. Shanahan looked as if he didn’t know
where to begin. For 30 years he had started work at 6 a.m. and not quit until 11 p.m. There was so much he wasn’t current on, so many things to catch up on. Example: he had never sent a text message. “I’ve got to learn the ways of the
world,” he said. It was an awkward adjustment. With
no job to go to, Shanahan turned his organizational skills toward home.Peggy says, “He kind of got inmy space.” Peggy had always handled the family finances, butnowShanahan wanted to take care of the bills.He wanted to know every single thing “he never asked a question about for 33 years.”WhenPeggy would grab the car keys, he’d ask, ‘Where are you going?” Then he’d suggest ways she could be more efficient with her errands. “I was like okay, that is enough,” Peggy says. Pretty soon she was ready for him to go back to work. Shanahan wasn’t idle for long. He
knew he would be back in the NFL in 2010, and soon was studying tape again. “I know he was watching players and breaking down film the entire time he was away,”’ McCaffrey says. Over the summer he visited the Pittsburgh Steel- ers and New England Patriots training camps. He surveyed talent, considered which coaches he’d like to hire when he got a job again, mulled the 3-4 defense. By the time he accepted the Redskins position in January 2010, he had actually been working for several months. “He went back towhatmadehimwhat
he is, studying football, X’s and O’s, and how to exploit defenses,” Schefter says. “Mike’s a meat and potatoes guy. That’s who he is and that’s what he eats when you go out with him. The world he stepped into, the riches and the success he’s had, it’s just a different world than what he came from. Work, that’s all he’s done.” The grinder is back on the job — and
the Redskins need grinding. Shanahan has spent much of his time correcting dysfunctions in an organization that long emphasized highly paid stars over work ethic, and paid for it with mediocri- ty.
But Shanahan has always put in his
hardest and best work when he has something to prove. It’s worth noting that nine of the last 12 Super Bowls have been won by coaches who were fired by their previous team. “Mike doesn’t take failure easily,”
JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST
Shanahan returns to the sideline after calling his ouster from Denver “shocking.” He coached the Broncos for 14 seasons, but won just one playoff game after 1999.
Pryce says. “One way or the other he’ll be a success. Give him time and he’ll get you there eventually.”
jenkinss@washpost.com
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