Albert Haynesworth will probably outlast Donovan McNabb in Washington too.
That was the only logical takeaway from Mike Shanahan’s press conference Friday, after we filtered his words through our Shanahan translator. Shanahan said he had a “great conversation” with McNabb’s agent Fletcher Smith for about 90 minutes.
“We’ll make a decision right after the draft exactly what direction we’re going to go,” Shanahan said.
Translation: We want to let McNabb go, but we’ll wait until we get a quarterback we like in the draft just in case.
The trick, of course, is that “after the draft” will likely be in the middle of a work stoppage. So it will be tricky to trade McNabb when a new CBA is agreed to, whenever that happens.
Shanahan’s words hardly come as a surprise. But if he was interested in possibly re-making McNabb as a potential starter, that process would begin now.
Instead, Shanahan came to Indianapolis with a specific message to get out there. He made it clear in his first words since the end of the season that McNabb has no future in Washington. (Even though he didn’t really say anything.)