Once again, Mike Shanahan’s first day of training camp involved discussions about Donovan McNabb and Albert Haynesworth. The difference this time: it also might have been the last time he’ll talk about them, at least for a while. They’re no longer Shanahan’s concern.
But Shanahan did discuss why both players were traded and why it didn’t work out with McNabb.
The Redskins traded McNabb to the Minnesota Vikings on Wednesday in exchange for a sixth-round pick in 2012 and a conditional one in 2013. The Redskins had told his agent, Fletcher Smith, before the lockout that they could shop McNabb. That ending is hardly what the Redskins expected to be the case when they traded a second- and fourth-round pick to Philadelphia in 2010.
Then they shipped Albert Haynesworth to New England for a fifth-round pick in 2013. Reports circulated that had Washington not traded Haynesworth, they would have kept him around rather than let him go to a team such as Philadelphia. However, Shanahan said that wasn’t the case.
“We would have released him if we didn’t trade him,” Shanahan said. “Either way, Albert wasn’t going to be here. If we traded him, no, he wasn’t going to come to our camp. I knew that we were going to go on after this year. Thankfully we did get a trade and it worked out well for Albert and New England, and obviously it worked out well for us.”
Shanahan said when McNabb came to Washington, the coach laid out why he thought Philadelphia unloaded him. Then Shanahan told McNabb what he felt he must do in order to continue playing well.
“This is what you’re going to have to do to stay on our football team for a number of years,” he said he told McNabb. “And if you do that, I think you have a chance to go to the Pro Bowl and do the things you’ve been doing throughout your career. And it didn’t work out, and we go on.”
Shanahan praised McNabb’s handling of the situation. However, there were nasty exchanges between his agent and the organization. Though agents typically say what the player wants to be said, Shanahan had no problem with McNabb.
“There was never a personality conflict with Donovan McNabb,” Shanahan said. “I never have seen one confrontation with Donovan with any coach in our building ever. Anybody every raising their voice, anybody ever yelling at each other. Nothing like that. You hear all these rumors, all this speculation and I can’t say anything about that.
“I still think that Donovan has a great future ahead of him if he decides to do the little things he needs to do to get to the next level then it will be there. But I’m not going to go into detail about what those things are, and I’m sure Andy Reid won’t either.”
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