ASHBURN, Va. -- Kyle Shanahan grew frustrated with what he calls the outside perception of his father.
Beyond this sprawling practice facility cut into a hillside in suburban Washington, pundits said after two losing seasons, pro football had passed by two-time Super Bowl-winning head coach Mike Shanahan.
Today, nearing the end of Year 3, the rebuilding of the Washington Redskins is in full swing behind the Shanahans and rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III, newly voted to the Pro Bowl. His running and passing has sparked a 9-6 season for a team with a playoff berth on the line Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys (8-7).
Kyle, his father's offensive coordinator, is cautiously vindicated. "It frustrated me. ... I care a lot about him," he says of the early criticism. "It's been fun to have some success this year, because he deserves it.
"But I don't feel by any means that we have arrived."
It has been a long wait for an impatient fan base. A 6-10 season was followed by 5-11, and the chorus calling for the removal of the Shanahans grew louder. Mike recalls his stint with the Oakland Raiders in the late 1980s, when he was fired by Al Davis midway through his second season.
"If you don't have strong perseverance and believe in yourself in this business, you won't last," he says. "Sometimes you're in a situation that's not perfect, and you fight through it. You just have to work."
Preparation? Work?
Kyle Shanahan's desk is swallowed in paper. The white board which covers the wall in front of his desk is bathed in dry erase ink. The 6-3 beanpole of a former college football player sports seasonal black divots under his eyes and a light beard.
"I have been so paranoid my whole life to not be prepared for something," says Kyle, 33. "So I think I've overprepared for every situation that comes to football."
The father of three and former University of Texas wide receiver sometimes spends entire days here, tinkering with the offense his father has given him liberty to run. They still clash over some things, but Mike is more confident in this offensive coordinator than any he has had.
"He works so hard at it and is so prepared," Mike says. "It's easier than it's ever been as far as me coaching from an offensive standpoint, because he knows it inside and out."
Chart a new offensive course
This is the Redskins' first winning season since 2007, and Griffin III, newly voted to the Pro Bowl, has much to do with that.
Before Griffin arrived here, the Shanahans had huddled for months, "constructively arguing," Kyle says, over how to employ the quarterback.
They watched film of every NFL team that had run the "zone read option" in the last five years -- the quarterback, from a standing position, receiving a shotgun snap, offering it to the running back, then deciding based on the edge rusher's action whether to hand off or keep the ball. They watched how the Denver Broncos, Carolina Panthers and Tennessee Titans, among others, ran it, and how defenses adjusted to it.
They weren't satisfied. So they came up with a way to run it from a pistol formation, the shortened cousin of the shotgun, with the running back behind the quarterback.
"I think every offense is designed to fit the quarterback's skill set," Mike Shanahan, 60, says. Griffin "has a unique skill set. I don't think anybody in the history of the league has played at his level."
It was something new to pro football, and to Griffin, too, which is why he says his first few weeks in Washington were no fun. "Because they knew a lot more than I did at that point," he says of the Shanahans.
Griffin and the offense the Shanahans conjured up has become the talk of the NFL, and guaranteed the braintrust more time to get the job done. With six wins in a row, the Redskins are in position to make the playoffs for the first time since 2007, two years before Mike was fired by the Broncos, then hired to fix the Redskins following two seasons of failure under Jim Zorn.
It has been an up and down journey for the head coach, winner of Super Bowls with the Broncos in 1997 and 1998. It's a tale with a constant theme, says CBS NFL analyst Shannon Sharpe, a Hall of Fame tight end and former Shanahan pupil.
"Here's what we know about coaching in the National Football League: If you have a (good) quarterback, you are considered a genius," Sharpe says. "If you don't, it's a matter of time before you get fired."
Hitting the quarterback bonanza
After winning two titles with John Elway, Shanahan didn't have a great passer in Washington until Griffin, but the roster had numerous other shortcomings. Shanahan wanted high character guys, and found the opposite in disgruntled and well-paid defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth. And there was a bigger problem: a defining lack of depth.
"Let's be real. They inherited some (crap)," said cornerback DeAngelo Hall, who joined the team in 2008. "They had to work out a lot of things, and for them to be able to do what they did in what I think is a short period of time, hats off to them, and credit to (general manager) Bruce Allen, and to (owner) Dan Snyder for sitting back and letting them work."
Kyle took the offer three seasons ago to go from offensive coordinator with the Houston Texans -- where his offenses finished in the top five in the league two years in a row -- to the same post in Washington. He knew there would be the cries of nepotism which have followed him all his life -- "You've got a lot of haters out there" -- and he knew the two would clash, but would wind up enjoying it.
Is Kyle enjoying himself? "It depends on the hour you ask me," he said with a smile. "My dad and I are very similar. We both have strong personalities. I'm not scared to express my opinion to him and he's definitely not scared to do the same."
The father and son butted heads during the summer over how they would incorporate the zone running game into the pistol formation. They laugh now about the arguments they had over an offense which has put the NFL on notice.
"The league better get used to it because that's where it is headed," says Troy Aikman, Hall of Fame quarterback and current Fox lead NFL analyst. "Before, you never ran a (quarterback) on the option because you were paying him so much money -- and they pay him more money now. But you can't take away those things that allow (RGIII) to be great."
Mike Shanahan maintains that not much has changed from the offense the Redskins were running last year.
"It's the concepts that have been there," he says. "All we did was sprinkle in the option. We knew that if a person could throw it like Robert, the play-action, have the speed and the skills -- mainly speed, because he could run away from people -- we could put pressure on defenses."
The players left behind in Denver see a big difference from the Shanahan teams they knew. Broncos defensive back Champ Bailey says it has a lot to do with the addition of Kyle's fresh eyes, and sharp tongue.
"I'm sure his son doesn't pull no punches, and I'm sure he's just as tough as he is," Bailey says. "Those two young and older minds together, they make you a genius."
All in the Redskins family
Family, for the Shanahans, is not just about them. Redskins defensive tackle Barry Cofield recalls learning of his grandfather's death this summer and calling to inform Mike Shanahan.
Shanahan didn't want to know when the funeral was, or how long Cofield would be absent from the team. He told Cofield to go be with his family, and he gathered the team to remind them where family stood on the totem pole.
"That means a lot to me when I put my hand in the dirt on third and inches, that my coach cares about me as a person. Not just as a player," says Cofield. "We're all pros. We get paid and they can fire us but can't force us to do anything. You've got to feel like you're playing for a guy who you have faith in or that you trust.
"It gives you that extra drive when you're tired on a Tuesday and it's your off day and you say, 'I don't think I want to come in,' but you realize how much he's got invested and he cares about you."
That might come as a surprise to outsiders, accustomed to seeing Mike red-faced on the Redskins sidelines, screaming at referees. His news conferences, on the other hand, are reserved and tight-lipped, although not quite in the mold the New England Patriots' Bill Belichick. Mike does a lot more joking around these days.
"He doesn't scare me, but he definitely intimidates a lot of guys in this locker room and this organization," says Hall, "He might come off angry. He's a little quiet at times and always red, but he's just coach."
Hall disappointed Shanahan in October when he was ejected from a game and fined for screaming at a game official. Kyle Shanahan did nearly the same thing back in September, blowing up at a replacement referee at the disputed conclusion of a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. He was fined $25,000.
So which Shanahan has the worst temper?
"Consistently its probably (Mike) Shanahan," says linebacker Lorenzo Alexander. "He's always got the ref's grill. He's saying everything underneath the sun to them and really ripping them, which is cool to see."
Shanahan has a lighter side, too. Griffin says he can be funny, "But he's not trying to be funny, so you can't laugh."
Fellow rookie quarterback Kirk Cousins remembers finding Shanahan's book - Think Like a Champion, co-written by ESPN's Adam Schefter - and reading it when he was drafted. When he arrived and told Shanahan he had read his book, the coach quipped, "Actually, Adam Schefter wrote it."
Redskins Park is finally a fun place to work, Hall says. Cousins says the team wants to keep it that way. The only way to do so is to keep winning.
"After a while, I told the veterans, it seems like we want to win just because we don't want these guys to be gone," Cousins says. "We want to have these guys around here for a long time."
Contributing: Jarrett Bell, Lindsay H. Jones, Jon Saraceno
Copyright 2012 USATODAY.com
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