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In Kyle Shanahan’s first two seasons as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, he finished with a 10-22 record. His third season in 2019 is where things turned around for the young coach. The 49ers went 13-3 and represented the NFC in the Super Bowl.
The 49ers turnaround was due to good coaching, solid quarterback play and an outstanding defense.
That’s a formula that could work for the Washington Football Team in 2021, according to Mike Greenberg of ESPN’s “Get Up.”
On Friday’s edition of “Get Up,” Greenberg chose Washington as his darkhorse for the upcoming 2021 season, comparing Washington to San Francisco in 2019.
“Now, the NFL gets so much attention all year round that it’s hard to imagine it could ever have a secret as well-kept as the Washington Football Team is heading into this year,” Greenberg said. “Caesars has them at 25 to 1 to win the NFL. Even Vegas doesn’t see this as coming. And it is. The formula is there, and it’s proven recently. They are the 49ers of two years ago.”
Next, Greenberg went into his list of reasons why Washington resembles that 2019 San Francisco team — and they do sound familiar.
Start with the quarterback, who has been far more magic than tragic as of late. These are the numbers, the last three seasons Ryan Fitzpatrick has a higher completion percentage than Tom Brady, a higher touchdown percentage than Dak Prescott, a higher QBR than Deshaun Watson. He’s been very good and his new team is sneaky loaded. It won an admittedly bad division last year with the worst quarterback play in the sport. They were 32nd out of 32 teams. Their top receiver is a stud. You barely know. His name is 25-year-old Terry McLaurin. He has more than 2,000 yards in two seasons playing with Dwayne Haskins, Case Keenum, Alex Smith, Kyle Allen and Colt McCoy. The running back is 23-year-old Antonio Gibson. He had over 1,000 yards from scrimmage and 11 touchdowns, starting just 10 games as a rookie. And the defense, it may very well be the best in the entire sport. They had the best pass-rush in the league in the second half of last season.
Greenberg also likes Washington’s coaching staff, led by Ron Rivera.
The comparisons to San Francisco were made in 2020, too. The 2019 49ers had four first-round picks on the defensive line and were led by a stud pass-rushing rookie in Nick Bosa.
Now, Washington should be even better with an improved group of wide receivers and a hungry veteran quarterback who has played some of his best football in the last three seasons.
We will certainly know a lot about this Washington team by Week 7 after playing Kansas City and Green Bay in consecutive weeks.
Just remember this in January. #WFT pic.twitter.com/xJY21SYTKF
— Mike Greenberg (@Espngreeny) September 3, 2021