Andrew Luck theory: After the bye, did Shanahan tank the Redskins season on purpose? Was there hidden purpose in the McNabb extension?

[redsand521]

No one is going to trade for Donovan McNabb to be their franchise quarterback. Anyone picking as early as Carolina, Buffalo, etc. are a lot more away than a quarterback, especially one who's going to be on the wrong side of 35 soon. If you have a shot at Andrew Luck, you take him. You don't trade him away for Donovan McNabb.

KDawg makes an excellent point here. I don't see any team passing up on Luck. Maybe before this year McNabb would have looked more appealing in a package.

[Kostaskins]

we dont suck enough to out suck the panthers, bills, lions and whomever i missed with 1-3 wins!

[The Full Monty]

we dont suck enough to out suck the panthers, bills, lions and whomever i missed with 1-3 wins!

Even if the teams you cited have worse records, Bills might be set with Fitzpatrick, Lions have Stafford even though he's fragile...so it really comes down to the Panthers of that list, Kostaskins, with regards to drafting a QB.

[THEREALTOR1]

If Mike started tanking games just to align for a shot at a QB who's not even guaranteed to enter the draft, I'd want him removed from the HC spot rickey tick!

Shocker !i!! You do know that you don't have to make excuses, right GoDeep? You can simply just say whats really on your mind

[Grinder]

Basically we'd need the Panthers to win a game (or two) so the Lions or Bills end up with the top pick. Even then we'd have to outbid them in a tradeup without having any mid-round picks to package.

[DRSmith]

Yes lets ignore the Oline and our needs on the Dline espicially an elite Nt and some backers and have two big name quarterbacks

And who are they going to throw too?

[Seabee1973]

Every one of those guys had serious question marks coming out, but they were ignored (well...they were in the case of Shuler and Leaf) come draft day. I fail to see much in the way of comparisons between those guys and Luck.

Shuler: Great college QB but dumb as a sack of rocks when it came to running an NFL offense (which shouldn't have been a huge surprise because the Tenn offense at the time was somewhat dumbed down for him and catered to his style of play). He also got rattled easily and had no poise. Luck is a very smart/cerebral QB and doesn't get flustered. At least that is my observation from watching him play a lot this year.

Leaf: Please. Leaf was a walking red flag. Immaturity was the biggest one, along with the ability to run a pro style offense. The guy was pretty much pure athletic ability with a hot head and the temperment of a 14 year old. Luck is pretty much the polar opposite as far as maturity. He runs a very pro style offense at Stanford. He is extremetly gifted athletically and you can see it, but he uses his head more than he does that when playing.

Brennan: Really? Who ever compared Brennan to Peyton Manning? He put up gaudy stats in a gimmicky offense. His footwork sucked, his mechanics were crappy, and he didn't have much of an arm. There is a reason he fell to the 6th round. Scouts were, by that time, wary of QBs who put up crazy numbers in those types of offenses. I'm not sure how Brennan is even in the same ballpark as Luck as far as scouting goes.

Shulers problem was he didnt have a head coach his first 3 years in the league. Honestly i think the skins rushed him in to quick that season. I watched a game that he started he threw an interception was benched and gus forget came in and threw 3 interceptions then Gus started the next game

[KDawg]

Even if the teams you cited have worse records, Bills might be set with Fitzpatrick, Lions have Stafford even though he's fragile...so it really comes down to the Panthers of that list, Kostaskins, with regards to drafting a QB.

If the Bills have a chance on Luck, they can't pass him up. Their fanbase will riot. Seriously.

[S.T.real,lights,out]

Well seeing how the Rams are a totally different team with a big time QB id say ok. Even though im a McNabb supporter. I guess if we could get something for him i would do it. But that still doesn't help the OL

[KDawg]

Well seeing how the Rams are a totally different team with a big time QB id say ok. Even though im a McNabb supporter. I guess if we could get something for him i would do it. But that still doesn't help the OL

And this is where I have the biggest issue.

If we package picks to trade up, it'll be significant picks. I don't see anything currently on our roster that we could trade to recoup those draft picks, either. We're talking this years/next years firsts + a few others. So we'd have a very good, young, quarterback at our disposal... Which is very important... But it would take another 4-5 years to get anything around him. If we had rebuilt the way I believe we should have in the first place, we may be in natural position to draft Luck. This is why the "be competitive while 'rebuilding' " route is a poor choice. Now we're up the creek without a paddle and what has it gotten us?

And hell, if we did well while rebuilding the right way, then I'd have still been okay with it because then we'd have less holes to shore up.

[youngestson]

No one is going to trade for Donovan McNabb to be their franchise quarterback. Anyone picking as early as Carolina, Buffalo, etc. are a lot more away than a quarterback, especially one who's going to be on the wrong side of 35 soon. If you have a shot at Andrew Luck, you take him. You don't trade him away for Donovan McNabb.

What he said.

[Atlanta Skins Fan]

If the Bills have a chance on Luck, they can't pass him up. Their fanbase will riot. Seriously.

That's not the only consideration. Sam Bradford's contract gave him about $21 million in bonuses between the draft and the start of the 2nd season. With the 2011 season in doubt, any team drafting Luck is going to be looking at spending up to $25 million in bonuses against zero revenue. That's very hard on small market teams like the Bills and Panthers.

Redskins also have Haynesworth to trade. The main reason he is devalued right now is his contract in relation to his attitude. Skins could tear up the existing contract with Haynesworth, bonus him again and trade him as part of the Andrew Luck deal. Either to the team with the #1 pick or in a 3-way trade to pick up more picks. Haynesworth on a veteran minimum + incentives contract (bonus paid by Redskins) is probably worth a #2 pick. So is McNabb under contract, for the right team.

Thinking creatively, the Skins could have a #1 pick around #6, plus #38, plus McNabb / Haynesworth or their equivalent in two #2 picks. That might be enough by itself to move up, given the uncertainty over the 2011 season. It's certainly enough if they want to throw in the 2012 #1 pick, which would be worth doing if necessary. However, I'd like to see the team retain one #2 pick this year if possible, so they can acquire at least one impact interior lineman, NT, OLB, or FS.

[DRSmith]

That's not the only consideration. Sam Bradford's contract gave him about $21 million in bonuses between the draft and the start of the 2nd season. With the 2011 season in doubt, any team drafting Luck is going to be looking at spending up to $25 million in bonuses against zero revenue. That's very hard on small market teams like the Bills and Panthers.

Redskins also have Haynesworth to trade. The main reason he is devalued right now is his contract in relation to his attitude. Skins could tear up the existing contract with Haynesworth, bonus him again and trade him as part of the Andrew Luck deal. Either to the team with the #1 pick or in a 3-way trade to pick up more picks. Haynesworth on a veteran minimum + incentives contract (bonus paid by Redskins) is probably worth a #2 pick. So is McNabb under contract, for the right team.

Thinking creatively, the Skins could have a #1 pick around #6, plus #38, plus McNabb / Haynesworth or their equivalent in two #2 picks. That might be enough by itself to move up, given the uncertainty over the 2011 season. It's certainly enough if they want to throw in the 2012 #1 pick, which would be worth doing if necessary. However, I'd like to see the team retain one #2 pick this year if possible, so they can acquire at least one impact interior lineman, NT, OLB, or FS.

Unless of course they can get a rookie salary cap then the money goes down some

[LD0506]

What concerns me is that say we DO work some magnificent deal and get Luck AND he does turn out as well as projected (there's a lot of big ifs in there), and we finally have a franchise QB, ok fine. You still don't have a team around him, you've spent a major portion of the next two year's assets acquiring him and you may need to sit him a year or part of one just to get him up to speed. No matter how good he is in college it just ain't the pros. Highly touted incredibly well-paid rooks get a baptism of fire when they come in, defenses across the schedule will be looking forward to playing "Welcome to the NFL" with the new kid. Unless you're going to have Trent surgically attached to him for protection, (something that might interfere with his throwing motion a tad), he is going to be running for his life behind a shamblized O-line that also won't be able to give him the running game to take the pressure off like Jackson does for Bradford. Ok but he's a star! Wonder of wonders he does manage to produce, "get" the pro game right off the bat and you consistently score better in every game all season long. Your D, with no resources to fortify it, is a sieve and just gives up more points so you end up losing the games anyway. I can hear some of you now, "Yeah well, it's his rook season, at least we have our QB now!" Year 2 you still haven't fixed the line because you spent some of those picks on making the deal for a QB and your vets are a year older and leave you with more holes to fill, you still haven't fixed the D, you haven't added WR or RB help unless you get extremely lucky in FA or discover an unseen gem UDFA player..............oh, and add in that you have to pick quality starters in the late rounds, have to, because that's you're only hope of any help, and we all know how easy it is to do that......

Keeerist, there are so many if's in there, so many stars need to align before you actually start getting a return on this huge investment (and that only happens if he DOES turn out as well as people think) that you're probably better off planning on hitting the Powerball and the MegaMillions back to back to make ends meet. We mortgage the next couple of years for a rook QB and then have two (or more) losing seasons and people will riot because their expectations will be so amped up because we took Luck.

Look at Carson Palmer for example, highly touted, first pick, hell of a good QB........ where has that gotten them? Seriously, they are not that much closer to playing in a SB because of that. It takes more than one player, even a superb one, to bring success.

The less flashy plan of fixing the O-line, not adding one guy but fixing it but adding top talent through the draft and FA, and then doing as much as you can with your D would paying greater dividends sooner, and would not leave you scrood by one injury to one guy.

This isn't even about how good Luck might be, it is a question of doing the reasonable, prudent thing to make the team better.

[paloosa]

Mike Shanahan famously benched McNabb in the closing minutes of the Lions game: a clear demonstration of frustration with his starting QB.

Two weeks later, and with the bye to think about it, the Redskins gave McNabb a huge contract extension in the hours before the Eagles game. On closer examination, the contract apparently gives the team annual opportunities to release McNabb at little cost.

So, what happened over the bye?

We know what has happened *since* the bye: the Redskins went from possible contender to a blundering mess. Eagles blowout was the opening act. A surprising win against the Titans is followed by a loss to the Vikings and a blowout by the Giants. The best defensive player is held back with a mysterious achilles injury. The starting left tackle is held out of the Giants starting lineup, in addition to Haynesworth. Then Haynesworth is suspended, after more friction with Shanahan.

What's going on here? A lot of smart people are starting to call out Shanahan and Bruce Allen for fielding a team whose progress from the Zorn era is hard to measure. I'm not one of them, for a variety of reasons.

One reason is a simple theory. What if Shanahan and Allen are a whole lot smarter than anyone dares imagine? What if Shanahan concluded over the bye that McNabb was simply not going to be "that guy" (i.e., Shanahan's next John Elway), and that the Redskins needed to define a strategy for landing the next franchise QB of the future, as priority #1? What if the target turned out to be Andrew Luck? What then?

If you were coach of the Redskins and you decided over the bye to go after Andrew Luck, the events since that time are relatively consistent with such a strategy. Sure, the Skins did beat the Titans, but the Titans helped that to happen by failing to field a QB in the 4th quarter. The McNabb contract extension and details, the blowouts to the Eagles and the Giants, the handling of injuries, and the handling of Haynesworth ... are all consistent with a plan to draft Andrew Luck.

They won't win the race for the #1 pick in the draft. But, the Redskins might land a top 6 pick. And, when you're trying to trade up to #1, it sure helps to be able to throw Donovan McNabb into your offer for the #1 pick. Especially with that nice contract extension you arranged over the bye.

The way to trade for the #1 pick is to offer a good QB with a good contract to the team holding the #1 pick, as part of the package. That's real value. Now think about that contract again. A curious contract by its timing, or an incredibly savvy play, looking months ahead to the draft?

Mike Shanahan and Bruce Allen, you've got my vote of confidence. Especially if I'm right.

Are you serious? WOW! So did Shanahan and Allen conspire together or was this just a Shanahan move? Did the players that were mysteriously hurt asked to tank a game? Was this whole Haynesworth saga actually the work of Mike Shanahan and Allen asking Haynesworth to act up this season like he has done so we could get that pick? That would mean that we are going to lose the rest of the games so we can have a top 5 pick. Then we would do a Mike Ditka and sell the whole Draft on Andrew Luck. ARE YOU SERIOUS! WOW!

Get some real facts and evidence instead of a conspiracy theory to present to this board. This is not too far off from a possibility but too highly unlikely to happen given all the people that would have to be involved tp pull it off.