A Peek Inside Mike Shanahan's Playbook

Doug Farrar, who writes for two of my regular visiting sites, Football Outsiders and Yahoo's Shutdown Corner, is also a contributor for the Washington Post and recently posted four offensive plays from Shanahan's Denver playbook. Doug provided excellent, click-through steps with explanations so complete that even Ken and Jim Zorn could understand them. 

We've heard quotes in the past weeks from Devin Thomas and Chris Cooley that Shanahan plans to line up the WRs and RB on all different parts of the field. This is crystal clear with the four plays Doug listed out, which includes a lot of players in motion and aggressive play-calling. We all know the Skins WRs are better than they appear. So, combining that with Shanny's aggressive play-calling and schemes means the Redskins will certainly be confusing defenses.

The play that most interests me is the goal-line play. How many times as fans did we scream for some bootlegs? Well, expect a ton of QB pocket movement with McNabb and rollout options like Cutler's highlight reels seemed to always have.

In Play III, Shanahan has 2 RBs as wideouts where one goes in motion. This play might be more difficult with the current RB situation, but that makes it clear he needs to draft a RB that can compliment these types of plays. Shanahan asked Portis to slim down this off-season, which certainly could help him in the minimum WR roles he would see.

One thing is clear, Shanahan is the king of exploiting defenses and making adjustments - something that probably would have won the Redskins at least 3 more games last year.

With this peek in Shanahan's playbook, I expect Ken to update his Redskins' season prediction to 15-1.