The young staff’s ideas—many honed with salt and
pepper shakers during happy hour at watering holes
like the Ashburn Pub—were making their way into the
playbook. “Here was a multibillion-dollar organiza-
tion,” says Flowers, “being run by Mike Shanahan and
a bunch of 25-year-olds.”THE REDSKINS went 6–10 in 2010 and 5–11 the
next year, due to a combination of subpar talent
and injuries. Finding a quarterback remained an issue.
They had gone with an aging Donovan McNabb and a
rehashed Rex Grossman. They also tried out John Beck,
a 2007 second-round pick of the Dolphins.
As the 2012 draft approached, the coaches scoured
the QB class. Washington traded three first-round picks
and a second-rounder to move up and take Robert
Griffin III—the preferred choice of owner Dan Snyder—
second overall. In typical Skins fashion, they took KirkCousins—favored by coaching staff—three rounds later,
setting themselves up for a future QB controversy.
The Griffin selection forced the coaches to innovate
like never before. It quickly became apparent that for
all his skills—arm strength, athleticism, speed—Griffin
couldn’t read a defense. So Kyle set out to make another
alteration, stitching in a familiar concept: the zone read.
The staff gathered in the film room one memorable
spring afternoon—his assistants joke that Mike locked
them inside. They ran through cutups of Tim Tebow’s
time in Denver, Cam Newton’s rookie season in Caro-
lina and Griffin’s career at Baylor. When they finally
finished that session, Mike told them, “Let’s run it backstared back at him. That started with Kyle, the prodigal
son. For years he had implored his father to join forces,
but Dad had laid out three nonnegotiable conditions:
- Kyle had to become the offensive coordinator for an-
other team, 2) he had to call the plays for that team, and - that offense had to finish the season in the top five
in total offense. Otherwise, he told his son, “they’d call
that nepotism.” Kyle checked all three boxes in only his
second year as a play-caller (with Houston, the league’s
fourth-ranked offense in 2009). He was 30 when his
father hired him as Washington’s offensive coordinator.
Matt LaFleur, 30 when he arrived in Washington,
came with Kyle from Houston to become the Redskins’
quarterbacks coach. Early in his tenure, he heard some-
one yelling through the wall next door as he scribbled
on a whiteboard. “Who’s that?” he wondered.
As it turned out, Mike Shanahan was conducting
an interview for an offensive assistant opening. He
knew the applicant’s grandfather, John McVay, a for-
mer Niners GM who with Walsh had constructed one
of the NFL’s great dynasties. Shanahan says that after
meeting with 24-year-old Sean, he canceled the other
three interviews.
Shanahan tasked McVay with binding playbooks,
making copies, scribbling out play sheets and organizing
cutups of opposing defenses. But McVay could study
another coach’s play sheet for 20 minutes and recite
more than 100 plays. He remembered random sequences
from games played by other teams, just from casually
watching them on TV. “It’s almost like remembering
a song for him,” McDaniel says.
THE SHANAHAN
SYSTEM HAS
CHURNED OUT SOME
OF THE LEAGUE’S TOP
QUARTERBACKS
K IRK
COUSINS
The
Shanahans’
pick in 2012,
Cousins is
sixth among
active QBs
in career
passer rating
(95.0).J A RED
GOFF
Goff has
60 TD
passes and
a Super Bowl
appearance in
two seasons
under
Sean
McVay.