Redskins alternate history: What if RGIII never got injured?

Redskins alternate history

The first thing that may have happened, had coach Shanahan made the obvious move immediately after the initial injury, is that he may have established himself as the final word on all things related to on-field activities within the Redskins’ organization. This presupposes that Shanahan was inclined to remove Griffin but was hindered by an ownership structure that interfered with his decisions. I can’t prove any of this, but I think it is likely to assume that Mike Shanahan spent a fourth-round draft pick on Cousins the same year the team chose Griffin precisely because he knew there may come a time when his services would be required.

But Shanahan, like every other coach who has served under owner Dan Snyder, was never free to make decisions strictly along football lines. Snyder has always cultivated personal relationships with his more prominent players and that has affected his coaches’ ability to manage the roster. Marketing has often appeared to be a more important factor in roster decisions, such as the Adidas-sponsored “All in for Week 1” campaign that put a still-diminished RGIII on the field in Week 1 of the 2013 season.

Had Shanahan put his foot down at the right time — had he said, “this isn’t a Willis Reed-style moment and I’m going to make a football decision” — perhaps it would have taught the owner a valuable lesson on how to actually achieve success in the post-season, instead of in the offseason. I, like many fans, hold out some hope that seven years later, new coach Ron Rivera may signal this lesson has finally been absorbed, but we’re all a bit gun-shy. We will have to just wait and see.

But we do not have to wait in my alternate history. Because after establishing himself as the alpha, coach Mike was able to walk away and turn things over to his son Kyle, the best young coach in the game (who, by the way, has visited the Super Bowl twice since he said sayonara to the Redskins). The younger Shanahan would be the coach today, perhaps with his buddy John Lynch — reigning Executive of the Year — handling the GM duties. One thing is for sure: Bruce Allen, had he stayed with the team, would never have crossed over into on-field management, an area in which he was dreadfully inadequate. He may well have remained as chief marketer and party planner, where his talents could flourish.

More from Riggo's Rag

• What will Emmanuel Forbes bring to the Washington Commanders?
• Highlighting the best Commanders 2023 NFL Draft betting props
• 3 late Commanders rumors drawing buzz ahead of the 2023 NFL Draft
• 4 bold predictions for the Commanders 2023 NFL Draft
• Commanders News: Chase Young trade, draft day, CB riser and Sam Howell

If you look at the personnel Shanahan has assembled, in both Atlanta as offensive coordinator, and in San Francisco, along with Lynch, it gives a tantalizing look at what the Redskins’ roster could have looked like. First and foremost, we will assume that Robert Griffin III took the slow and prudent route to recovery after the knee tweak in January, 2013. He may not have needed an entire offseason, since he would have only been recovering from ligament strain, but the team would have insisted that he enter into a training regimen designed to protect his fragile knees. If Cousins needed to start the first six games of 2013, it would have happened while the team made sure Griffin was as healthy as possible.

And then Kyle Shanahan would have gone to work designing an offense that did not put Griffin at great risk. This does not mean eliminating the run-pass option altogether. It just means it would have been featured less prominently. It also means that Alfred Morris would have become even more of a workhorse, and as we have seen with the 49ers, at least one or two other running backs would emerge to shoulder more of the load from Griffin. A late-round draft pick in 2013 like Latavius Murray or Rex Burkhead may have found a home with the Shanahans. Or perhaps Kyle Juszczyk, who was drafted a few spots after the Redskins grabbed stud safety Phillip Thompson — or, sorry — that’s Thomas. Gee, you’d think I’d remember a guy who appeared in eight games in his entire NFL career.

With the quarterback position locked down, the Redskins would have eventually swung a deal for Kirk Cousins. After having shown promise while filling in for Griffin, he would have commanded a good price. San Francisco gave up a second-round pick in 2016 for Jimmy Garoppolo. Cousins could have fetched something comparable. New England would end up trading that second-rounder to Kansas City, and the Chiefs turned the pick into Chris Jones. I realize the Redskins have acquired some pretty good defensive linemen over the few seasons, but how would the second-best defensive tackle in the NFL – arguably the man who should have won the Super Bowl MVP award this past year – look anchoring the Redskins line for the past five years?

If you don’t think Cousins would have returned quite the same value as Garoppolo, I’ll allow for the Redskins only getting a third-rounder in return, where former Maryland Terrapin Yannick Ngakuoe would have been hard to pass up. Either way, the rebuilding of the defensive line would have begun a few years earlier.

I realize that Kyle probably had little to do with the Atlanta Falcons’ defensive draft picks when he was their offensive coordinator in 2016, but it’s my alternate history, so I’m going to give the Redskins those Falcons picks – safety Keanu Neal as well as linebackers Deion Jones and De’Vondre Campbell.

Shanahan brings in his buddy Robert Saleh to coach the defense and the switch to a 4-3 begins several years earlier. This allows Ryan Kerrigan to flourish as a natural DE in a 4-3, and with Neal locking down the strong safety position, there would be no need to spend $84 million on free agent Landon Collins in 2019. Instead, that money, with a little extra kicked in from not having Alex Smith on the ledger, goes to Trey Flowers, who joins Kerrigan to form one of the better pass rushes in the league.

Of course, I should not discount the players the Redskins would be giving up if they had selected Neal, Jones and Campbell. But I think somehow we would have soldiered on, had Josh Docston and Su’a Cravens never been present at Redskins’ Park (To be fair, the Redskins traded away their pick in the round that Campbell was chosen and would eventually turn that pick into Matt Ioannidis and Jeremy Sprinkle. Alternate histories do not come without some sacrifice).

I did not mention the one significant offensive player Atlanta selected in the 2016 draft – where I suspect Shanahan did have some influence. That would have been Austin Hooper, who the Redskins made a brief run at this offseason. Maybe he would have been a compliment to Jordan Reed had Shanahan been in charge of the Redskins in 2016. But I’ll pass on that, since the Skins didn’t fully understand the severity of Reed’s concussion problems. Besides, I’ve got a pretty good fallback position coming up.

Shanahan took the top job in San Francisco in 2017, and in his first draft there, he spent a fifth round pick on a tight end. I’m going to say that by 2017, the Redskins would be sufficiently concerned about Jordan Reed’s long-term health to have done the same. So in 2017, Shanahan still picks George Kittle, only this time he’s going the Redskins.

In 2018, knowing the success he has with unheralded running backs like UDFAs Raheem Mostert and Matt Brieda, Shanahan see no need to spend a second-rounder on Derrius Guice. He solidifies his offensive line with the player selected immediately after Guice — Brian O’Neill. O’Neill performs as he has for Minnesota over the last two years, starting 26 games at both left and right tackle, and allowing — wait for it — ZERO sacks.

With Trey Flowers and Ryan Kerrigan providing a formidable edge rush, the Redskins do not trade up for Montez Sweat in the 2019 draft, and instead hold onto their second-rounders in both 2019 and 2020. With the 2019 second-rounder, on the prowl for young weapons for RGIII, they take the WR Shanahan ended up taking for the 49ers, Deebo Samuel (Or, if you want to nitpick and argue that Samuel would not have been on the board by the time the Redskins picked in the second round, I’ll sub in A. J. Brown, who did go toward the end of Round 2).

And I don’t think it would be out of the question to double up and still take Terry McLaurin in the third round. But if you don’t think it would have gone that way, we’ll just choose Chase Winovich, who went right after McLaurin, to further bolster the defensive front. We can be magnanimous like this because we still have our 2020 second-rounder, which could turn into WR Michael Pittman. Then again, if you can’t imagine parting with Terry McLaurin, you can still have him, and we add to the defensive line with Yetur Gross-Matos in 2020.

All right — we can go on and on and on. But you get the point. This all kicks off with two big suppositions — that Shanahan pulling RGIII from the Seattle game would have fixed the systemic problem with management, and would have also led to a healthy return by Griffin. And that in turn would have led to an offense designed by Kyle Shanahan with a healthy and more mature Griffin under center. He would be handing off to an array of backs and throwing to the likes of George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, and Terry McLaurin.

On defense, Chris Jones, Deion Jones, and C.J. Mosely would be leading a formidable unit that would still have most of its current personnel. It’s true that the Redskins may not have been drafting high enough to stock up on Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne, and certainly not Chase Young, but the only players they absolutely would have lost are Ioannidis, Collins, and Sweat, and they’d have comparable, if not better, replacements for all of them.

So anyway, I’m coming back to reality now. The future doesn’t look too bad. With a few good decisions and a few good breaks, the Redskins could be back to a good level in another year or two.

Just kind of maddening to think that with one good decision seven years ago, they could have been there all this time.