Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan takes long, winding road back to playoffs By JOHN KRYK, QMI Agency

After starting the season with a 3-6 record, Mike Shanahan's Redskins haven't lost a game since. (JONATHAN ERNST/Reuters file photo) What will Redskins' 'Mad Scientist' concoct to stop Seahawks? Pete Carroll's Seahawks defence like those at USC

Exactly two months ago Friday night, exasperation might have got the best of Mike Shanahan.

Was his career flickering? Was his effectiveness as an NFL head coach waning?

Would those back-to-back Super Bowls he'd won with Denver in the late 1990s forever remain as his unrepeatable moments of greatness, sort of in the same way that Beatles and early Wings songs tower over the ever-crappier ditties that Paul McCartney has churned out since?