You remember about 22 hours ago when Redskins coach Mike Shanahan lost a “must-win” game and responded by saying that at 3-6, the rest of this season was about evaluating his team for next season?
Yeah, he wants you to know he didn’t mean that like it sounded.
Shanahan told ESPN.com’s Dan Graziano that the idea he was throwing in the towel on this year was a misinterpretation.
“To insinuate that I was giving up on the season is completely ridiculous,” Shanahan said in a phone interview, which prevented Graziano from seeing the act of toothpaste being furiously jammed back into a tube. “We’ve got five NFC East games still on the schedule. Any time you have division games, you have a great chance.”
Just to recap, here were his exact words yesterday: “When you lose a game like that, now you’re playing to see who obviously is going to be on your football team for years to come. Now, we have a chance to evaluate players and see where we’re at. Obviously, we’re not out of it statistically. Now we find out what kind of character we have and how guys keep on fighting throughout the rest of the season.”
Where anyone would have gotten the idea that meant this year’s goals were dashed, boy, I don’t know.
“What I meant by that is, any time you have adversity, now you’ve got a chance to see all of these guys play every game the rest of the way like it’s a playoff game,” Shanahan said Monday in an effort to clarify. “What you want guys to do when there’s adversity is to play harder and play better, and that’s when you see what kind of guys you have in your locker room.”
At least two unidentified players, and one who put his name to it (Lorenzo Alexander), admitted yesterday’s words bothered them.
We’ll see when Shanahan talks to his team today whether those three, or the other 50, buy his explanation.