What was Mike Shanahan's Undoing?

ego

Sticking with Slowik, and I hear he is going to be Shanny’s DC at his next job, which shows his stubbornness. Also, he got attached to certain players and made them out to be better than they were. I love Ebenezer Ekuban for his effort, but truth is he wasn’t that great, but Shanny thought he was. Similarly, the team had serious discipline problems. Lots of Broncos in the news and in a negative way.

However, I don’t think anyone can underestimate the loss of Darrent Williams to this team. I think a lot of Broncos did not recover from that and I’m not sure Shanny did either, which would also explain some of his attachment to his players. Frankly if this is the case, I don’t have a problem with it, his death should be devestating, but maybe it’s good to get faces in here who aren’t still coping with that emotional trauma.

1. Unwillingness to hand over the defensive reigns to someone who is very strong in that area.

2. Unwillingness to get either change his methods for drafting / free agency or bring in someone to help in that area (I know his last draft was superb, but for years there were many choices he made that left many of us scratching our heads).

3. Ego – While I think this is actually a strength of his, it ultimately hurt him as he couldn’t see his faults any more and take steps to correct them. I think his firing will help him address this and be a very successful coach again in the near future.

I am not sure I would go so far as to say “familiarity breeds contempt”…but in some sense, his longievity worked against him…he had been in Denver so long, and was so set in his ways that he sort of stopped adapting to the changes in the NFL. And I think his motivational tactics began to wear thin on players he had coached for any length of time….and that sort of spreads even to newer players…I also think he made personnel decisions that changed the culture of the franchise…players like Travis Henry, skill set aside, set the tone for the type of free agent he was willing to work with….the Broncos started having a lot more players having scrapes with the law. McDaniels came in and immediately started adding “leadership guys”. This is clearly a cause and effect sort of action.

None of this is a knock on Shanahan per se. It would be difficult for anyone to have so much success and not begin to beleive that their way was “right”. I really think in the case of the Broncos, a change was needed….Shanahan will lick his wounds and emerge elsewhere as a good coach….but how many coaches in the history of the NFL have managed to have big success at two different programs? ….Shula….Parcells…Holmgren to a lesser degree….the game changes, and it is harder for these guys to change with it.

When the Broncos fired Shanahan….I was initially stunned…mostly because change is often shocking….but I was happy…and I knew he would land on his feet…he is wealthy man and will coach if he wants where he wants….and as for the team, despite the initial turmoil, I felt all along they were on the right course.

but opining that Shanahan “would make a fabulous offensive coordinator” is quite a put down. In a similar vein I imagine Belichick would make an outstanding high school football coach. I suspect any team that offered him that job could forget about him coming to work for them in any capacity. Shanahan has already succeeded at a level higher than offensive coordinator. Why did he lose his job? Too many blow-out losses, and a historic end-of-season collapse that ended with one more blow-out loss? Why did his teams become mediocre? GM/control freak Shanahan took over more and more duties and gradually crowded out coach Shanahan, who wasn’t as effective being the coach and all of the above simultaneously. And when the team floundered he made things worse by delegating even less and trying to control even more. By taking more control over defense and special teams, which are not his strengths, he guaranteed that both would continue to underperform. I also question his player evaluations, including those on the roster. I think his erroneous evaluations of the play of Webster and Winborn in particular sent the wrong message to the defense as to what counted as “good play”.

I totally agree with you that ,for a guy with Shanahan’s track record, anything less than an offer for a head coaching position would be an insult. I wish him well wherever he ends up, as long as it isn’t San Diego. I guess the point I was trying to make was that his specialty was always offense (even in those mediocre seasons), and his defense often suffered. If he does become a head coach, the organization that hires him would be well advised to make sure that they have a strong GM and defensive coordinator in place so that Shanahan doesn’t become a micromanager in his next gig which would, once again, negatively affect his coaching.

is probably the most tragic career-ending for a Bronco since TD. And had perhaps even more impact on the team.

three different running backs had 1,000-yard seasons in his system

Actually, he had six…and four of those six did it more than once for him.

These young new coaching gurus are what’s happening.

I don’t know if there was one thing. I mean, it started with the benching of Bubby and starting Greise in 1999, he really lost the locker room that year. Then TD goes down, that’s out of his control, but it led to his downfall. Not worrying about character until it was too late (Daryl Garnder, Dale Carter, Mo Clarett & Travis Henry), it wasn’t until the 08 draft where we started bringing in high character, high motor guys. It was the benching of Plummer while we were in a good position to make the playoffs with a guy who was winning 75% of his games. Or it was any other of the things mentions by other posters above. But you can nit pick any decision in hindsight. Any of those might or might not have had anything to do with how we played the last few years.

In the end it really doesn’t matter what happened, I will always be a fan of Mike Shanahan because he brought us and John Elway the Championship (twice!) allowing Elway to retire after an awesome year and Superbowl MVP. And while I thought it was time for him and the Broncos to part ways, I’ll wish him the best of luck coaching next year as long as he isn’t playing the Broncos.

With a little distance now, can anyone honestly say that Shannahan accomplished anything of distinction after Elway retired? Without going back to check the stats I believe he won only one post season game after the Elway era. Not that he had that many chances – since we had a bad habit of missing the playoffs altogether. Mike got fired for the same reason Dan Reeves did – he went too long between SBs and Bowlen is paying people to get us there not to just fill the seats.

One was I think the team had tuned him out, I think that after last season and the meltdown, you could tell the team really didn’t care anymore, which I think is like Bill Walsh said, a HC really has about 10 years before the team just doesn’t listen anymore. The second issue was a reluctance to change coaching, I have seen the whole thing about bad drafts and bad free agents, but the reality is that the past few drafts under Shanny were actually very productive and he had signed some very good free agents too, but everyone remembers the high profile busts. But if you rip him for signing the likes of Travis Henry, then you also have to give him credit for signing guys like Weigman, Lynch, and Graham. I think that he would of been given an extra year had he been willing to get a decent defensive coordinator and defensive coaches.

So I guess my vote would be for: “Multiple factors” :D

I too was one of the few that wanted him gone. I thought he should have been gone after 2007.

I think Shanahan had 3 things that ultimately wound up being his shipping papers:

1. Ego. You can’t build a successful team if you refuse to admit you have problems. Bob Slowik was a problem. Shanahan wouldn’t part with him, so that’s where that went.

2. Shanahan’s Country Club. You all know what I mean. Injuries can’t ever be avoided entirely, but a proper training camp can be the difference between 4-12 and 12-4.

3. Favoritism. Again, probably not a popular subject, but I believe Shanahan’s blatant favoritism became a problem. To treat your defense the way he did in the past couple years should have been a huge red flag about his ability to field a successful football team.

Shanahan got too comfortable and tried to make minor tweaks here and there instead of making sweeping changes especially on the defensive side of the ball. Nolan proved that sweeping changes were needed in terms of personnel on defense. Shanahan was trying to build an offensive team that could make up for a porous defense. When a coach is too comfortable things get stale and the players reflect the coaches attitude. All this spells M-E-D-I-O-C-R-I-T-Y.

There is no better word (that wouldn’t be profane) to describe their defense from last year than pourous. I was thinking along the lines of “Charmin defense.” :)