Shanahan's rush to greatness

New Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan runs a version of the west coast offense, something he learned from the inventor of it, Bill Walsh. The central premise of the west coast offense is reliance on a short passing game that essentially serves as an extension of the running game -- quick, high percentage passes thrown within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. The passes are thrown quickly -- often after a 3-step drop -- and the receivers get into the open field, using their superior athleticism against bigger defenders like linebackers. It's a way of bypassing the defensive line altogether, throwing the ball beyond them and throwing it so quickly that they don't have a chance to reach the passer. Some who run the west coast offense, like Eagles coach Andy Reid, sometimes forget to run the ball altogether.

Mike Shanahan's version of the west coast offense is different. He doesn't use the short passing game as an extension of the running game, he prefers to rely on his running game to help the rest of the offense work. There isn't anyone else running the west coast offense who relies on the running game as much as Shanahan does.

For all Shanahan's success as a head coach, though -- the two Super Bowl titles and four division championships -- he is known, more than anything else, as an offensive innovator. Twice during his 14-year tenure in Denver, the Broncos led the league in total offense. Seven of those seasons his offenses ranked in the top three. And though the defining player from his career there is undoubtedly Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, Shanahan's offense -- the offense he will ostensibly bring to Washington, where the Redskins have ranked in the top three in total offense just once in the past 15 years -- is based on the premise that running the ball, and sticking with the run, is paramount to opening up anything else.

"He's going to run the football," said former coach Herman Edwards, who regularly competed against Shanahan during his stints with the Kansas City Chiefs and New York Jets. "He's always had that ability. His style of football is that you pass to score, but you run to win. He lives by that philosophy."

Interestingly, Shanny uses multiple formations to confuse defenses, as Joe Gibbs did, but he favors smaller, quicker linemen, whereas Gibbs was known as the first head coach to insist on having a line of giants in front of his ball carriers.

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