Redskins coach Mike Shanahan was fired Monday morning following a meeting with team owner Dan Snyder. The embattled coach, who put the finishing touches on a 3-13 record with an uninspiring loss to the Giants on Sunday, leaves the organization with a 24-40 record, and that includes the 7-0 finish to the 2012 season thanks, in large part, to quarterback Robert Griffin III.
“Redskins fans deserve a better result,” Owner Daniel M. Snyder said. “We thank Mike for his efforts on behalf of the Redskins. We will focus on what it takes to build a winning team, and my pledge to this organization and to this community is to continue to commit the resources and talent necessary to put this team back in the playoffs.”
Executive Vice President/General Manager Bruce Allen added: “We are going to take a smart, step-by-step approach to finding the right coach to return the Redskins to where we believe we should be. We will analyze accurately and honestly all of the decisions that were made over the past year."
According to the Washington Post, Shanahan's assistants will meet with Allen Monday, and could possibly be retained based on the Redskins' next coach.
Shanahan made it clear in recent weeks that he had no plans to resign. That may have something to do with the $7 million he has remaining on his contract, as well as the fact that he'd like to fix the mess he's created in his four years in Washington.
"I've told you from Day 1, I love these guys," the coach said last week. "We've been working extremely hard to put this thing together. We've had a couple of bumps, which we all know, with the salary cap [penalty]. But I'm looking forward to building this team. Like I said, I'll get the chance to sit down with Dan at the end of the season and we'll go from there."
On Monday, shortly after he was fired, Shanahan met with the media.
"Is this a better place than it was when you came here four years ago," he said. "Instead of opening it up for questions, that one is probably asked of me more than any other one so I'll answer that.
"When we first came here, we knew we were in some tough situations relative to the salary cap. Any time that you release $100 million worth of players, you're talking about a lot of football players that have been very successful and that's always hard to do. ...
"I thought over the first two years, even though it was tough with five and six wins, I thought overall that the direction of the team was going in the right direction," Shanahan continued. ... "Going into the third year, I thought we had to get some defensive players. And when we got that $36 million (salary cap) hit, we weren't able to get some of those players we wanted to get. But to show you what our football team did, we were still able to win the NFC East.
"I was proud of them being able to do that. Anytime you're the 28th-ranked defense and 31st in special teams, usually you don't do it. Offensively, we were able to overcome some battles and we found a way to win -- at least the last seven games. ...
"[Depth] is what I thought really hurt us this year. Depth on our special teams, depth on our defense. We didn't have the speed we had a year ago. But the thing I feel good about going into this year is that we don't have those problems financially. ... I believe we're in at least a situation that we're better off today than we were four years ago."
With Shanahan now out of picture, RG3's coach at Baylor, Art Briles, could be in the mix to replace him.
Shanahan, who was hired before the 2010 season, becomes the Redskins' latest high-profile coach to not work out. He follows names like Norv Turner, Marty Schottenheimer, Steve Spurrier and Joe Gibbs out the door.
