Now, thank goodness, we will have clarity.

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It took six months of quarterback schools and OTAs and training camp, and three months of football, but as of this Sunday, we will have the answer to the question that Redskins fans have had for almost a year, and what has kept them wondering about the future of this football team:

Has Mike Shanahan changed at all?

The answer is no.

Mike Shanahan doesn't have to answer to anybody, doesn't have to explain anything, doesn't owe anyone the slightest bit of respect. He is the coach, and in charge, and that is all that matter. That his team is 5-8 and out of the playoffs, cratering the exact same way Jim Zorn's teams did the last two seasons, has nothing to do with him, you see. That maybe Kyle Shanahan's offense should be a bit more flexible around the personnel that's here, and not in Houston, is an outsider's assertion. We know what's going on in here. If only everyone would do what Mike Shanahan says and shut up already, his brilliance would become obvious to all, like the rebus puzzles in the old "Concentration" game show.

Last week, it was Albert Haynesworth. This week, it's Donovan McNabb. Next week, it'll be Santana Moss. Next year, it'll be London Fletcher. Or LaRon Landry. Doesn't matter. There's always someone else to blame.

McNabb has been dumped with three weeks to go in a lost season because, the coach says with a straight face, he has to find out whether Rex Grossman can be the starting quarterback next season.

OK.

Rex Grossman is 31 years old. He's been a quarterback in the NFL since 2003. There is, as they say, film on him. He has a career quarterback rating of 69.6. You say quarterback rating is a wholly overrated stat? Okay. He has a career completion percentage of 54.0. He has thrown 33 career touchdowns and 36 career interceptions. He went to the Super Bowl with the Bears in 2007. Less than two years later, he was backing up Matt Schaub in Houston, and the Bears had moved on to Kyle Orton. He has started 16 games only once in almost eight full NFL seasons.

Now, I'm pretty sure Mike Shanahan knows more about football than I do. I'm pretty sure he knew a year ago, when he was reinventing the game of football from his living room, what Rex Grossman could do at quarterback. I'm pretty sure, when he gave the Eagles two draft picks for McNabb, that he knew what Rex Grossman could do. If he didn't know what Rex Grossman could do, Dan Snyder never should have hired him. I'm pretty sure Mike Shanahan knows that Grossman -- who has, unfairly, been thrust into the middle of another bleepstorm in Ashburn -- is a journeyman backup quarterback, capable of finishing a game, or a season. But certainly not someone you have to "take a look at" as a franchise's leader. The Bears took a look. Now they're looking at Jay Cutler.

You remember Cutler. He was supposed to be the Next Elway, just like Jake Plummer and Brian Griese. Shanahan, it seems, views quarterback as no more important to a team's psyche than a nickel corner. Disposable. The only indispensable man, it seems, is the head coach.