Mike Shanahan was running down the laundry list of NFL coaches who had been shown the door within the previous 24 hours. Why all the carnage?
Simple, said Shanahan.
“It’s easier to fire coaches than players.”
In most places maybe, but not Denver. Here, the players come and go, but the head coach remains the same. In every way, shape and form. His results may vary, but Shanahan’s approach never changes. Never will, either.
Shanahan is a lot of things. Prepared, for one. Brutally honest, for another, with his players if not always with the media. Confident certainly is on the list, too, if not at the top. At times, confident hardly does him justice. Arrogant is more like it.
Thus his belief that he could be the one to turn around the likes of Dale Carter, Daryl Gardener and Maurice Clarett when so many before him had failed.
Now for the word that those who don’t know him would never put on the list of Shanahan adjectives: desperate.
There’s a certain irony surrounding Shanahan, one you don’t pick up on until you’ve known him for a while. He has more job security than any coach this side of Bill Belichick and more tenure than all but two NFL head coaches. But he keeps his job, the one he’s more than welcome to have for another 15 years, by coaching every game as if it’s his last.
It’s the only way he knows. It’s his edge, his security blanket, his salvation. It’s the reason he’s on the treadmill every morning at 5 o’clock and at his desk by 6. You can debate all day long where it came from. The Midwest work ethic his dad instilled in him. His ill-fated days with Al Davis. His firing by Dan Reeves for what Reeves termed insubordination, a word that, to this day, fries Shanahan’s bacon.
Ask him if he ever could have envisioned himself becoming the exception to the rule, an icon in an industry that disposes of coaches as if they’re 15-cent razors, and he cringes.
“I don’t even look at it that way,” Shanahan said. “I always look at it as, hey, you’re only as good as your last game. That’s what keeps me balanced. You understand it can change so quickly. It’s not what you’ve done in the past, it’s what you’re doing now. If you look at it that way, then you have a chance to survive. If not, it’s just a matter of time before you’re gone.”
And so it is that Shanahan, whose teams since 1995 have gained more yards, scored more points and won more games than any other, will treat these playoffs as if they could be his last. If anything, that feeling has been heightened by the Broncos’ string of six straight seasons without a playoff victory.
He appreciates it more now. But then, how could he not? John Elway and Shannon Sharpe and most of the other big names from the 1990s are long gone, but Shanahan, despite the ever-present limitations of the NFL salary cap, has the Broncos back in the dance. And no, not as a wild card. This time, they have a real chance, Peyton Manning or no Peyton Manning.
“There’s no question about it,” said Shanahan, when asked if he appreciated these playoffs more than the others. “When you’re around a team where all the faces change, that’s something I’ve never been through before. And when you’re dealing with the cap and so many different scenarios, it makes for a great challenge.”
The temptation is to say Shanahan has a sense of urgency these days, but that would imply that one moment in a football season is more urgent than another. Not to Shanahan it isn’t. In his eyes, an October game vs. Washington is every bit as urgent as a possible AFC championship game matchup with the Colts.
The trick is to get your players to feel the same way. Make no doubt, he has his methods. To wit: When a practice started getting sloppy before last week’s relatively meaningless game at San Diego, he blew the whistle and let the players have it.
Nothing new there. With Shanahan, you lose your edge, even for a moment, and you can lose your job. Just ask Clarett, who never made it out of his first NFL training camp. Or Bubby Brister, who was ordained the starting quarterback in 1999, only to fall behind Brian Griese on the depth chart without taking a regular- season snap.
The Broncos’ regular-season performance guaranteed them a bye week and a home playoff game. Which, to Shanahan’s way of thinking, doesn’t mean anything. In January and February, all that matters is what lies ahead.
“These opportunities don’t come along very often so you’ve got to take advantage of it,” he said. “I appreciate it so much because I’ve been on both sides of it. I’ve won the Super Bowl as a head coach and lost it as an assistant coach. The main thing I tell our guys is, if you win one or two, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got to win all three. You’ve got to keep reminding them that they haven’t done anything.”
Catch Jim Armstrong from 6-9 a.m. during “The Press Box” on ESPN 560 AM. He can be reached at 303-820-5452 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com.
