Mike Shanahan Talked About Not Wanting Donovan McNabb, Robert Griffin's Demands in Washington

Mike Shanahan was on ESPN980 in Washington, D.C., and left no stone unthrown in regard to Daniel Snyder, Donovan McNabb, and Robert Griffin III.

On Donovan McNabb, Shanahan claimed that he wanted Marc Bulger, but owner Daniel Snyder wanted to trade for Donovan McNabb. (For what it’s worth, Bulger never played a down of football after the 2009 season, so it’s not like he was a great option).

Shanahan claimed that he didn’t want to give up picks, but it was Snyder who drove the deal.

On RG3, Shanahan also tries to distance himself a bit, trying to act like he wasn’t fully on board with trading picks. He talked about the first choice being signing Peyton Manning that offseason after his release, but feared that he wouldn’t want to play in same division as Eli. (Equally important, probably didn’t want to go to a toxic situation).

The really interesting stuff is regarding Robert Griffin’s knee injury and Griffin’s demands. Shanahan said that because Griffin couldn’t work as a pocket passer, they had to adapt a lot of Baylor’s offense. When Griffin got hurt and missed the Cleveland game, though, he got mad when Shanahan did not use the same offense with Kirk Cousins and make him run the read option.

Shanahan then said that Griffin blamed his troubles in the Seattle game on the knee brace, not a further injury of the knee.

And then told them he wouldn’t run certain plays after the season.

Some of this isn’t surprising. Some is probably self-serving (did you know that Shanahan loved Russell Wilson in that draft in the third round? Weird how that works). All of it is an interesting view into the issues that continue in Washington, and that marred that disastrous 2013 season.