So much for peace on earth and goodwill toward men.
With Christmas here and warmth filling hearts throughout the world, agent Fletcher Smith and father-son Shanahan tag team continue to provide an NFL sideshow that surely has more and more Redskins fans hoping that owner Daniel Snyder will wake up on Monday, January 3 and clean house all over again.
On Friday, Redskins offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan tried to drive a wedge between quarterback Donovan McNabb and agent Fletcher Smith by claiming that the content of Smith’s recent statement taking aim at Kyle did not come from Smith’s client.
Among other things, Smith claimed that Kyle Shanahan didn’t appreciate suggestions made by McNabb regarding the offense the Redskins were using, and that the changes McNabb recommended were implemented after McNabb was benched.
“I called Donovan on the phone, mentioned I wanted to have a conversation with him to find out what this was all about,” Kyle Shanahan said. “And when I talked to Donovan [on Thursday], he said he didn’t say any of that.”
This time around, Fletcher responded not with a statement released to multiple outlets but with a traffic grab for SportsBUZZ.com, an athlete-driven pay-for-play website in which we suspect McNabb and/or Smith possess a financial interest.
“Donovan and I talk constantly and have done so with more frequency during this season,” Smith said. “We are absolutely on the same page. I stand by my statement and will reserve any further comments until after I have had a chance to speak, directly, with coach Shanahan.”
In other words, Smith says that Kyle is incorrect at best, lying at worst.
The problem, in our view, comes from McNabb’s desire to have it both ways. He wants to continue to be perceived as a guy who won’t make trouble, but he apparently wants his agent to twist tails on his behalf. Thus, McNabb needs to either ratify or refute the things his agent has said.
We’ll assume that silence constitutes ratification, unless McNabb fires Smith in the immediate future.