Skeptical fans should embrace McNabb trade

ASHBURN, Va. – Inside the foyer of Redskins Park, not far from where the three Super Bowl trophies rest in their dusty case, there is the franchise's room of ruined expectations.

It is a small auditorium actually – all upholstered seats – used primarily for team meetings. Except on those days in owner Daniel Snyder's regime when the Washington Redskins have gone and done something really audacious and the room is given over to a great news conference announcing the coach or player who will change everything. And then the newly anointed one, like Donovan McNabb(notes) on Tuesday, takes the eight steps from the side door to the front of the stage basking in the flashbulbs, staring unwittingly into an impending failure.

From Bruce Smith and Deion Sanders to Jeff George(notes), Marty Schottenheimer, Steve Spurrier and then a second run of Joe Gibbs before Jim Zorn and Jason Taylor(notes) and last winter's $100 million folly, Albert Haynesworth(notes), they have arrived. Some by limousine. Others by helicopter. None, save for Gibbs and his two frantic runs to the playoffs in 2005 and 2007, did anything worth savoring. Haynesworth remains, available to anyone who will rid the Redskins of his bloated salary. The others slinked quietly away, their legacies in tatters.

So it is with the appropriate skepticism that Washington has welcomed its latest savior.

On Tuesday, McNabb walked through the side door and took a place next to his new coach Mike Shanahan, a man whose own arrival in the same auditorium three months ago drew a fair level of apprehension. Together they stood: the presumed future Hall of Fame quarterback still in his prime and the Super Bowl coach dying to hold one more trophy. A perfect vision of passer and mentor – each bitter, both desperate to prove past brilliance.

"Fresh start, better than being fired," Shanahan (dumped by the Denver Broncos) sneered to McNabb (dispatched by the Philadelphia Eagles for two draft picks).

McNabb smiled and nodded.

And yet Washington has not embraced them. Not fully. Not the way it has run in the past with arms wide open for the likes of Smith, Spurrier, Taylor and Haynesworth.

Redskins fans have been burned so often with great new things who turned out to be too old, too injured, too inexperienced or too unmotivated that they can't recognize the real thing when it is standing before them.

Opinion polls have been running about 60-65 percent in favor of the team's Easter evening trade for McNabb, which isn't bad. But this is Donovan McNabb, one of the five best quarterbacks in the game for the past 11 years. A quarterback who took a franchise that had been a wasteland on Philly's south side and turned it into a perennial NFC title game participant – actually took it to a Super Bowl. A feared rival suddenly in the home locker room with plenty of good years left in his arm. And some 40 percent of the fan base wonders if it's a good idea?

The newspaper columnist and radio show host who proclaimed a "man crush" on Taylor the moment he laid his eyes on the fetching defensive end was far more dour in his assessment of the McNabb trade on Tuesday writing "offseason champions again? Of course. Here we roll again."

Redskins fullback Mike Sellers(notes), who has been with the team for parts of nine seasons, laughed while standing in the back of the room at McNabb's media session.

"I've been here a long time and I've seen a lot of stuff," he said drawing out the word 'lot' for emphasis. "I hate to say it but I kind of expect [such big trades and hirings].

"But [Shanahan and McNabb] are some of the best moves I've been around."

For years the Redskins flew without a real general manager. Until now the organization never seemed to have much of a plan beyond trading as many top draft picks as possible to make runs at glory. Never was this philosophy more evident than when Gibbs returned in 2004 and the whole push seemed to be to get Gibbs one more Super Bowl before he tired of coaching again. When Gibbs retired again following the '07 season, there was nothing left to build upon, leaving his replacement, Zorn, to wither as Snyder calculated his next splash.

Yet it turned out to be the right one. Shanahan brings a plan. One, it is easy to assume, that will be similar to that he used in Denver where he won 138 games and two Super Bowls in 14 years. He wants to build an effective passing game from a methodical running attack. It is a solid enough plan that only twice before the Broncos fired him two years ago did he have losing seasons. But many in Washington – tired of Snyder's failed runs at instant success – wanted Shanahan to tear the team apart, stripping it of all expensive players, stockpiling draft picks and rebuild slowly through several drafts.

Only this isn't how Shanahan works. He has never been one to suffer 4-12 seasons. And as he noted on Tuesday he had one 8-8 season in Denver before three years where his team won at least 12 games and took its two Super Bowls. Like in previous Redskins years, Shanahan will want to win now, the only difference is that he has a specific plan for how he will do it.

Shanahan and Elway celebrate their second Super Bowl win.
(Amy Sancetta/AP Photo)

One made easier with McNabb landing in his lap on Easter. It seems almost farcical now to imagine Shanahan maneuvering through the draft to pick Sam Bradford or Colt McCoy only to wait three years for them to develop. John Elway was 34 when Shanahan took over as Broncos head coach. They won their first title two years later. McNabb won't be 34 until this fall. Shanahan made his expectations clear on Tuesday. He will rebuild quickly behind McNabb.

He remembered how Elway took criticism in Denver as he grew old without a championship and how another quarterback he coached, Steve Young in San Francisco, had to wait years behind Joe Montana before getting the chance to start and how the resentment ultimately pushed Elway and Young to win titles late in their careers. Neither of them suffered as much as McNabb, who was long scorned by Philadelphia's fans and media.

Any evidence that anyone needed to show how angry McNabb is at the Eagles for trading him away appeared Tuesday when the quarterback was asked at what was the last point he figured he would stay in Philadelphia.

"Easter," he said.

Then smiled.

Unlike the parade of failures who came through Redskins Park before him, he wants to win. He still burns to win. Hours after his arrival from his home in Arizona, he was working out with new teammates.

Much like his new coach who still privately bristles about his firing in Denver after the 2008 season, McNabb is motivated.

Finally the Redskins have gotten the next big moves right.

Too bad their fans have seen this too many times before to believe it.