Still, you’d think at some point Shanahan might decide to just stop talking. Because I don’t think his recounting of history is doing him any favors.

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The latest effort came in a long story by my pal Jason Reid, who now writes for The Undefeated. The quote that stood out concerned the team’s 2012 trade with the Rams for the No. 2 overall pick, which led Washington’s front office on a celebratory trip to the Bahamas. “The men spent the weekend toasting their trade, playing golf and celebrating a deal that neither Cleveland nor Miami could get done,” Adam Schefter wrote of that trip in the fall of 2012. “And now, after Griffin’s debut, it’s easy to understand why.”

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Well, maybe not! Here’s Shanahan, to Reid:

While Snyder and the team’s minority owners basked in their accomplishment during the impromptu trip to the Bahamas, Coach Shanahan wasn’t having fun. “Dan knew I wasn’t very happy about what we did, but he wanted everybody to celebrate how smart we were, so we jumped on his plane and met the other owners on his yacht,” Mike Shanahan recalled. “Everyone was celebrating. I just didn’t think it was very smart to give up that much for a guy who we didn’t even know if he could drop back and throw. “When I finally sat down with Dan, I said, ‘Hey, you own the team. We can work with him and do some things. But we haven’t seen anything on tape that warrants giving [up] this type of compensation.’ To me, it was absolutely crazy. But I told Dan that if that’s what he wanted to do, I’d make it work.”

What a noble servant, soldiering on during this futile effort to build around a flawed player, which he knew was doomed from the start. Poor, poor Mike Shanahan, the lowly executive vice president of football operations, bullied into an “absolutely crazy” trade for a player who hadn’t showed anything remarkable on tape. You can see it all so clearly in his quotes at the time.

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March 2012: “It felt great,” Shanahan said of the trade. “[The Rams] asked us to make our best offer. When you do, you’re never sure if it’s going to work or not. You make an offer you think will give you the best chance to get in position to get a franchise guy and we felt very good when we did it. … I think that’s what you have to make a decision on: What’s in the best interest of the franchise? That’s what you get paid to do. To get that franchise quarterback is pretty tough. I’ve been in this league for awhile. They just don’t fall off of trees. If you can get a guy you feel is a franchise quarterback, then you have to make the decision if it’s in the best interest of your organization. We felt it was.”

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March 2012: “You’ve got a game plan and you get somebody that will be your franchise quarterback for years to come and it doesn’t happen very often,” Shanahan said. “I was really pleased we got that pick — to take one of these two guys.”

March 2012: “When I think back about when the Broncos got John Elway, I don’t think anybody looks back and says, ‘Hey, did we overpay?’ ” Shanahan said. “To get a guy like that doesn’t happen very often. So if you’ve got an opportunity to get a guy you feel is a franchise quarterback, I think you’ve really helped your organization for the long term.”

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April 2012: “I’ve watched every play that both of these quarterbacks have made since they were freshmen,” Shanahan said. “I’ve watched every game, every scenario. I’ve told everybody I feel like you’ve got two franchise guys. When you make a move to the second pick, you have to feel comfortable with both guys. You’ve got to be able to say, ‘Hey, I feel great.’ And, yeah, I’ve heard a lot of different things. But whatever happens, you’ve got to be happy with both.”

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August 2012: “I felt great,” Shanahan said of the draft. “No matter what direction Indianapolis decided to go in the draft, we’d be in good shape.”

August 2012: “Before we made the choice to move up in the draft, we looked at every game that both quarterbacks had played,” Shanahan said. “We loved both guys.”

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August 2012: “What’s the one thing you need in the NFL? The quarterback,” Shanahan said. “You know if you have the quarterback, you have a chance.”

“That’s what the Redskins have now,” Jason Reid wrote. “The smile on Shanahan’s face proves it.”

September 2012: “Shanahan said it wasn’t all that difficult for the Redskins to stomach giving up what it took to get the pick for Griffin,” Mark Maske wrote.

“The difficult part was spending all the [time studying] film on Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin for three or four years, then coming to the conclusion whatever direction you went you’d feel good about the trade,” Shanahan said. “So we knew to go from the sixth position to the second position, it was going to cost us two number ones [beyond this year] and a two. That’s what we felt. …. Now, obviously that’s a lot. [But] we felt good about both of those quarterbacks at that time. We felt it was worth the price.”

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October 2012: “We got a guy who has a chance to take us to the promised land, and that’s what you want,” Shanahan said.

November 2012: “In the position we were in, you’ve got to evaluate both [Luck and Griffin],” Shanahan said. “And you don’t make that move unless you think the world of both guys.”

November 2012: “I think everybody looks for that franchise quarterback, the guy you can have on your team for 10, 15 years,” Shanahan said. “That’s what you’re hoping for, and I think that’s what everybody looks for. One of the reasons we made the trade was because we felt like he was one of those guys.”

August 2013: “It’s hard to get a franchise quarterback,” Shanahan said. “You gotta make a decision, and pull the trigger if that’s the direction you want to go.”

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Look, maybe Mike Shanahan was bullied into trading too much for a flawed player who hadn’t proved he could be an NFL quarterback. But the time to show courage on this issue was in early 2012, when his bosses were pushing him to make an “absolutely crazy” trade for a player he wasn’t sold on. Instead, Washington’s executive vice president for football operations went along with a trade he knew was bad, spent months publicly justifying it, rode the flawed player to a division title and national acclaim, and then four years later is attempting to explain that of course he always knew this was a terrible idea.