The Heath Shuler experience

I had the chance a few weeks ago to meet Heath Shuler, now a Congressman from North Carolina, but who was once the next great Redskins quarterback.  I write about this because it was about 2 days after Trent Dilfer had announced his retirement after 14 years in the NFL, and I couldn't help but think about the irony of the situation.   It got me thinking about what the last 14 years could have been like for the Redskins had Shuler worked out.

I have to say first off, Shuler was a great guy and I appreciated him taking time out to chat with me a bit.  We talked football and what the Skins need to be competitive this year (an offensive line), and he said that he’s always been a Redskins fan and always will be.

As any dedicated fan (or guy with too much time on his hands) will remember, the Skins had a debate during the 1994 draft about whether to take the great Tennessee quarterback Shuler, or the unknown but full-of-potential Fresno State gunslinger Dilfer.   It was a chance to draft a potential franchise quarterback, and the general consensus was that was the direction the team wanted to go with the pick.   The Skins took Shuler, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers chose Dilfer.
Dilfer went on to have what has to be considered a solid career.  He won a Super Bowl on the defense-heavy Baltimore Ravens, and finished with 113 touchdowns versus 85 interceptions over those 14 years.  Now he’s an analyst with ESPN, and I’m sure he’ll be just as good if not better in front of the camera.

Shuler didn’t have half the career Dilfer did, neither in length or accomplishments.  Whether it was that he didn’t grasp the offense Norv Turner put in place or whatever, Shuler’s career with the Skins was as short as it was frustrating for fans with vivid memories of the Gibbs’ years. 

Imagine though, that it had been different, and what these past 14 years could have been.  Imagine that Shuler, Michael Westbrook and the rest of the guys who could’ve been had actually been, and they had led the Skins to, say, 3 Super Bowls (I think that’s a legit number, given the way teams like the Broncos, Patriots and Packers were dominant now and then during this period).   Go ahead and revise history in your own head and imagine a Farve-like career here in Washington, with MVP’s, championships, and just plain old happiness in DC instead of the years of frustration that drove me to the edge of shutting the game off entirely.

It’s wrong to look back, to say what if, or wonder what could have been.  I should use my first blog post on this site to talk about this upcoming season, or Jim Zorn, or that AWFUL game in Carolina last week, but I think it was a bit ironic that I met the quarterback who could have become my favorite player ever only days after the guy the Skins almost drafted over him retired.