A slight melancholy came over me after the defeat at Dallas. It was like both barrels discharging simultaneously, a real jolt! I came to the conclusion that it’s possible, Coach Shanahan had come to the conclusion he should have come to when he signed on -- that it was going to take time. When I took that in, I realized we’re all headed into a type of therapy --- the long and painful way back to recovery.
I recall him saying something like this back in January. But that was the last mention until recently. “When he stood that day with a hope that was dead in the glare of the truth at last. He had failed, he had failed; he’d just done things by half. The season had been a jolly good joke on him, and now was the time to laugh.” (paraphrasing of Robert Service, The Men Who Don’t Fit In)
Shanahan should have figured out early on this was a raze site not a fixer-upper. For reasons unknown, he called off the wrecking ball. Instead, he defied the sagging main timber in the foundation that would be Old Number 92, and then decided to make the whole construct top heavy by expanding with a superfluous addition that would be Old Number 5. Not typical know-how for someone in-the-know.
Ironically, with the crash that was heard last week, when the facade was mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, he has turned into a right jolly old elf. As odd as it sounds, this is the first time Shanahan was probably ever okay with missing the playoffs, because the specter of having Old Number 5 take them there, would have caused catatonia.
If they actually do bring in the H.E.O’s (heavy equipment operators), and we’re looking to 2012 as the earliest for significant improvement, then I have to drink a stern toast to Shanahan and simply say ‘here, here.’ Like they say, all things must come to an end and be careful what you ask for. I’ve been pointing in this direction for so long, now that they may actually take it, seems to take my bully pulpit away. Kind of like that movie Kirk Douglas was in, “There Was A Crooked Man,” in the end after struggling to get back to where he’d left the loot, he opens the box only to have a rattlesnake bite him in the neck. Kirk’s last words, as only Kirk could say it , “Aahh, Sheet”!
So now, when the coach talks about it taking time, and building it the right way, what are we to believe the right way is? Do we believe he still knows how to build, based on what we’ve seen so far? Or the all encompassing question, CAN HE GET A PERMIT?
