Oh no, look I got a letter

So, I got this string of ridiculous arguments in my inbox the other day and I decided it'd be very easy to just destroy several obscenely popular excuses used on Shanahan's behalf.

Fact: Elway rings under Reeves/Phillips-0 Elway rings under MS- 2

Let's more accurately look at Elway's career before Mike Shanahan came to Denver. In Elway's first twelve years in the league he compiled a 114-77-1 record in the regular season as a starting quarterback. That is a .596 winning percentage. Elway's teams made the playoffs seven out of those twelve years and in three out of those seven they made it to the Super Bowl.

Mike Shanahan on the other hand as a head coach without John Elway has compiled a record of 62-54 for a winning percentage of .534 when you include his dismal failure in Oakland, where he got booted out of town five games into the 1989 season. Shanahan's teams have made the playoffs a total of three times over these eight years, winning a total of zero playoff games.

Shanahan only rode Elway's coattails as Elway played the same as he always had and just accomplished the inevitable.

Fact: No NFL head coach has won more game than Mike Shanahan’s 108 victories since the start of the 1995 season.

This is true, but only because Shanahan had Elway for the 1995-1998 seasons as well as the fact that there are only two other coaches who have coached the last ten years consecutively.

In order to rank Shanahan's current performance fairly we need to take a look at the last five seasons, this gives Shanahan the advantage of not having to deal with the 6-10 finish in 1999. Thirteen coaches have coached the years 2000-2004 consecutively.

This graph shows the thirteen's regular season win totals. Shanahan is tied for seventh place with Jeff Fisher and Brian Billick.

But what Fisher and Billick have are playoff victories. I wish I could say that Billick or Fisher have twice as many or something like that but you can't divide by zero. Shanahan is tied for last place at zero playoff victories with Seattle coach Mike Holmgren.

I didn't give one win coaches a logo and Shanahan sucks so bad he doesn't even earn his team colors.

Coaches with all least 2 Super Bowl Victories: Lombardi*, Shula*, Knoll*, Walsh*, Jimmy Johnson, Parcells & Belichick.
*notes Hall of Famers

It is ridiculous to compare Shanahan to most of these coaches. Lombardi won five Championships and was 10-2 in the postseason. He had a regular season winning percentage of .705. Don Shula won 326 regular season games with a .609 winning percentage. Shula's teams made the playoffs 18 times and he won three Super Bowls. One of Shula's Super Bowl wins came in 1972 where his Dolphins became the only NFL team to finish a year undefeated. Bill Walsh won three Super Bowls. But George Seifert's Niners teams were dominate for years after. Parcells has numbers close to Shanahan's but Parcells had success across the NFL with multiple quarterbacks. Shanahan on the other hand has had success only in Denver and only with John Elway. Bill Belichick is 10-1 in the post season with three Super Bowl wins, he is light years ahead of Shanahan when it comes to NFL coaches.

So, on one hand you have the winningest coach in Bronco history and the winningest coach in the NFL the last 10 years headed for the Hall of Fame. On the other hand, you have you... a dweeb with a website.

Right, and on one hand you once had the President of the most powerful nation in the world, and two dweeb reporters from the Washington Post.

Question, who would you hire to be the next head coach? With credentials as good as Shanahan.

When you look at Shanahan's credentials in context, you learn that the talent pool from which to draw your new head coach could probably hold half of Lake Michigan.