Coach Mike Shanahan said Friday he has not scheduled a meeting with Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder to determine his future with the organization.
The Redskins have a record of 3-12 in the fourth season of Shanahan’s five-year contract. They close their season with Sunday’s game against the New York Giants at the Meadowlands.
“My only real expectation is a quick decision from everything that I’m hearing, one way or the other, what’s gonna happen,” Redskins defensive tackle Barry Cofield said Friday. “So as long as it’s quick, you can’t really complain so much. Obviously we want to keep as many people in place as possible. You work with these guys. … We’re confident we can get it fixed. But realistically, we know it’s more than that.”
Cofield said he will await word after the season finale about what happens with the team’s coaching staff, but he won’t necessarily follow every detail of the news coverage.
“Nah, definitely not blow by blow,” Cofield said. “In today’s 24-hour media cycle with so many rumors and things like that—I definitely am gonna follow but blow by blow will make you want to pull your hair out.”
Several people familiar with the situation continued to say this week they believe it’s likely that the Redskins and Shanahan will part ways. Some of those people said they think the scenario by which Shanahan might stay is if he and Snyder refuse to budge on financial considerations.
It is believed that Shanahan would be paid for the remainder of his contract, estimated to be worth about $7 million per season, if he is fired and would forfeit that money if he resigns. He has said he does not intend to resign.
It has been speculated that Shanahan will make significant changes to his coaching staff, perhaps with new offensive and defensive coordinators, if he does stay. So it appears almost certain the Redskins are facing widespread changes. They also have a large number of players eligible for free agency, particularly on defense.
“There’s gonna be a lot of new faces,” Cofield said. “But there was a lot of coaching changes this year where people came in and the team was immediately successful. There’s examples of that, for sure. So I definitely don’t look at it as a rebuilding. Just a retooling or re-tuning and come back out and get back to work.”
Shanahan said the Redskins had “a good practice” Friday.
“Players were into it,” Shanahan said. “We ended, at least today, with the red zone [drill] that we work on, a little bit new, on a positive note. So it was a good practice.”