Report: McNabb Benched, Chaos in the Capitol!

GAH! Lock yourself in your storm cellars, everyone! Hide the cat! Drink all your remaining gasoline! Washington is about to EXPLODE!

Yes, Mike Shanahan finally went and did it. Kelli Johnson, Redskins beat reporter for Comcast, just tweeted the bombshell:

Just learned that Rex Grossman is starting over McNabb Sun in Dallas; I'm told Redskins Lockeroom is divided and guys are extremely upset

No! You can’t bench Donovan McNabb! He’s too dignified! Mike Wilbon likes him because they’re both from Chicago! No one executes a better bounce pass to the tight end!

Seriously though, this announcement is the pretty brown bow on what has become an execrable Redskins season. It’s hard to pinpoint the worst move the Skins made with regards to Donovan McNabb. Was it giving away draft picks for him? Was it benching him at Detroit with less than two minutes left? Was it handing him a contract extension AFTER that benching, and without seeing any marked improvement from the QB? Was it failing to ensure that a QB NOT named Rex Grossman was McNabb’s backup in case he faltered?

Or was it this exact moment, when Shanahan turned to Grossman right before a game against his franchise’s hated archrival? There’s so much blame to go around. It’s as if the Skins have a giant airplane hangar full of blame that they restock every offseason. I’m not sure this Shanahan/McNabb situation could have played out any worse. And these two men were supposed to represent a decided upgrade for this team.

Perhaps this is a sign that the Redskins are now one of those franchises who simply destroy anything they come into contact with. Shanahan has mishandled his QB and Albert Haynesworth so badly that his credibility has been shot in a breathtakingly short amount of time. This team looks no more organized than they did under Jim Zorn’s death watch. I once declared the Skins the most hopeless organization in the NFL, which is a dumb thing to say with Detroit and Cincy and Buffalo and Oakland still playing football. And yet, this organization seems to firmly belong with that group of losers now. They can’t do anything right, even when they do something right. Dan Snyder is just that horrible. He’s like a living curse. A very short, demanding curse.

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