Former Washington coach Mike Shanahan recently claimed that he advised Rams coach Jeff Fisher to pursue quarterback Robert Griffin III. Fisher didn’t.
And maybe it’s good that Fisher didn’t, because it’s impossible to reconcile Shanahan’s endorsement with Denver’s failure to even bring Griffin in for a visit.
Last week, Mike Klis of 9News.com in Denver reported that Broncos G.M. John Elway didn’t pursue Griffin due to character concerns. Surely, Elway’s assessment of Griffin included the opinions of his former head coach, who also happens to be the mentor of current Denver coach Gary Kubiak.
There’s clearly a pipeline still in place between Kubiak and Shanahan; as Kubiak said on January 30, “I saw Mike last week, spent some time with him.”
Although Shanahan said that no other team called to ask for his opinion about Griffin, it’s possible (if not likely) that Elway and Kubiak already knew Shanahan’s views.
Indeed, Denver’s current quarterback quandary didn’t emerge out of the blue. Even though Peyton Manning didn’t retire officially until March, the Broncos knew well before then that they didn’t want him back. They also knew that Brock Osweiler possibly would leave, which means they needed to have a plan in place for landing a new quarterback.
Regardless of when the conversation happened, Elway has accomplished far too much as a General Manager and Kubiak has been too successful as a coach to not factor in the well-informed opinions of Shanahan regarding the most important position in the game. Which means that, no matter what Shanahan says he told Fisher, Shanahan didn’t nearly say enough to Elway and Kubiak to get them to even bring Griffin in for a meet and greet.
