D8
EZ SU
KLMNO PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL Coach defends benching of McNabb redskins from D1 When team owner Daniel Sny-
der hired Shanahan in January, and then Shanahan and newgen- eral manager Bruce Allen traded forMcNabb in April, the conven- tional wisdom held that the fran- chise had stabilized itself at its two most important positions: head coach and quarterback. Monday, those two figures found themselves in a situation that not only has ramifications for the rest of the 2010 season but beyond, becauseMcNabb—for whom the Redskins parted with two draft picks — is a free agent at the end of the year. “It does raise an interesting
point,” cornerback DeAngeloHall said. “After the season, will he be here or not? He has a decision to make, too. It’s not strictly up to this organization. It’s up to him, too, as well.” Shanahan used some of his
regular meeting with the media Monday to say he believed in McNabb for the future. “We all knowDonovan’s a franchise quar- terback,” Shanahan said. He add- ed that negotiations on a contract extension forMcNabb could con- tinue between Allen and Mc- Nabb’s representatives. He also said that, should Mc-
Nabb heal over the bye week so that he can practice the two-min- ute drill — and other drills the quarterbacks must perform each week— he would expectMcNabb to be the quarterback in a late- game situation when the Red- skins return to play Nov. 15 against Philadelphia. “Without a question,” Shanah-
ansaid.ShanahansaidonSunday thatMcNabb would be the starter against the Eagles. But Shanahan also acknowl-
edged that the Redskins’ offen- sive struggles— they rank20th in the league in yards per game and 21st in points per game — deeply involve McNabb, who carries a passer rating of 76.0, a rating that ranks 25th in the NFL. “I’m not happy with where
we’re at offensively,” Shanahan said. “As I told Donovan, I said, ‘Hey, you’ve got a ways to go.’ Our offensive line’s got a ways to go. Our receivers, I mean, collective- ly, our coaching staff— we’re not
Redskins Insider 6Excerpts from
washingtonpost.com/redskins
Injured Torain may
play against Eagles An MRI exam of running
back Ryan Torain’s strained hamstring revealed no structural damage, and Coach Mike Shanahan said he hopes Torain can play in the team’s next game,Nov. 15 against the Philadelphia Eagles. “It wasn’t a tear,” Shanahan
said of Torain’s injury. “Does that mean he’ll be able to go nextMonday? I’mhoping so.” Meanwhile, Shanahan said,
it appears doubtful that veteran back Clinton Portis will return to the lineup in the first game after the bye week. The Redskins had only one
healthy running back in the second half of Sunday’s 37-25 loss to the Detroit Lions. Third- string back Chad Simpson, slowed recently by a hamstring injury, was inactive. Torain, promoted after
JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST
Mike Shanahan has concerns over DonovanMcNabb’s health, his profiency running a two-minute drill. “I know he’s probably extreme-
happy where we’re at.” Sunday night,McNabb said he
was surprised by Shanahan’s de- cision, buthedid notmentionany physical issues. He did not ad- dress reporters onMonday. Grossman, though, said he got
the feeling he might be in line for playing time — his first inWash- ington — as the Redskins pre- pared to face the Lions last week. “I was told to make sure to
watch a lot of tape and be ready in certain situations,” Grossman said. “I didn’t really think any- thing of it. I thought they were getting me ready to play just in case of a situation where they wanted me to play, and it turned out to be that situation.” The decision to sit McNabb
was a prominent topic of discus- sion in the Redskins’ locker room and around the league on Mon- day. Nearly every player on the teamwhowas asked about it said he was surprised or, as Hall said, “shocked.”
ly upset,” said veteran linebacker London Fletcher, the team’s de- fensive captain. “As a competitor, you’re not going to be happy to be pulled from a ballgame.” The move befuddled experi-
enced NFL observers outside the Redskins organization. “If I’m Donovan McNabb, I’m
hot,” Tony Dungy, a former coach who won the Super Bowl with the Indianapolis Colts, said on NBC’s “Football Night in America.” “I’m your starting quarterback. As a coach, I can’t take you out of the game when we have a chance to win if I believe in you. This tells me they don’t believe in him.” The questions weren’t just
about Shanahan and McNabb, though. Because Grossman has a reputation for committing turn- overs — with 36 interceptions against 33 touchdown passes in his career— the fact that he was the player to replace McNabb rankled even further.
THIS TIME I WANT SOMETHING
“It wasn’t just taking Donovan
out,” Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin said on the NFL Network. “It was bringing Rex Grossman in. All of our eyes have seen enough of Rex Grossman.” Grossman, like McNabb,
hadn’t practiced in the two-min- ute offense in five weeks, though Shanahan said Grossman had impressed while simulating the Colts’ no-huddle attack as the Redskins prepared to face India- napolis two weeks ago. Though Shanahan said he did
not tell McNabb of his plans to use Grossman in such a two-min- ute situation, he said he met with McNabb on Monday morning, and the pair had a “good conver- sation.” “You’ve got to address it,” Sha-
nahan said. “I know he’s getting questions all the time. You’ve got to answer those questions and hopefully get it cleared up.”
svrlugab@washpost.com
Portis suffered a severe groin injury inWeek 4, sat out the second half because of his hamstring problem. Torain produced 10 yards on nine rushes (a 1.1-yard average). Rookie running back Keiland Williams took over after halftime, finishing with 25 yards on six rushes (a 4.2-yard average) and had his first rushing touchdown. After Portis was injured, the
Redskins said they expected him to be sidelined four to six weeks. When they resume their schedule inWeek 10, the Redskins host the Eagles at FedEx Field. “Let’s say Clinton is able to
practice next week, normally it takes a guy a couple of weeks to get back in football shape, that would bemy guess,” Shanahan said. “If he is able to go full speed onMonday, it’ll take a couple of weeks before he plays. You never know for sure. It might be a little quicker. It may take a little bit longer.”
A struggle with sacks
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McNabb in the waning moments of Sunday’s loss is the play ofWashington’s offensive line, which allowed a season- high seven sacks to the Lions. “We feel like we prepared as
well as we could, and that’s been an emphasis for us in pass protection,” guard Kory Lichtensteiger said. “. . . I haven’t seen [the game video] yet, but for whatever reason, we had a fewbreakdowns.” McNabb now has been
sacked 22 times on the season; only Chicago’s Jay Cutler has been sacked more. Those sacks have resulted in 155 yards in losses; again, only Cutler has lost more yardage. Midway through the season,
McNabb is on pace to be sacked nearly as much as any previous year in his career. In 2000, his first season as a starter for Philadelphia, he was dropped 45 times.He was sacked 44 times in 2007 and 43 in 2003.McNabb suggested Sunday afternoon that he could have done more to help his line. “I wouldn’t say thatmy
offensive line let me down,” he said. “I could have made some people miss. That’s something that obviously I’ve been doing for years, and I can make some guys miss and get the ball out ofmy hands and recognize some different things.” Backup Rex Grossman was
sacked on the first snap he took asMcNabb’s replacement, putting the Redskins on pace to allow 46 sacks this year. They have allowed that many just six times in franchise history—46 in both 2009 and 1978, 48 in 1984, 52 in both 1977 and ’85, and a team-record 61 in 1998. The Lions entered the game
with 16 sacks in six games, tied for 11th in the NFL. They now have 23 and are tied for sixth- most in the league. What went wrong? “We didn’t do our job,”
center Casey Rabach said. “I don’t know how else to answer the question.”
—Jason Reid and Barry Svrluga
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2010
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