After one of the most forgettable games of his tenure in Washington, Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan said he was not interested in discussing anything past the end of the 2013 season.
"There is only one focus I have now," he said unequivocally. "There is only one thing I will talk about and that will be the Atlanta Falcons, or we will talk about the remaining three games."
Shanahan acknowledged that there are rumors circulating about his long-term status in Washington as well as his relationships with quarterback Robert Griffin III and owner Daniel M. Snyder.
Those, however, are fodder for a different time and place.
"It's not the right time or place to talk about my relationship with Dan Snyder," he said. "Anytime you are 3-9 or 3-10, there will constantly be things brought up, time after time. I'm not going down that road, because I understand what happens when you are having the type of season we are having.
"I will get a chance to talk to Dan [Snyder] at the end of the season, and I will give him some viewpoints from me. I'm sure he will give me his thoughts.
"I'm not sure what direction we will go, but we will communicate that at the right time."
As far as today's 10-45 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, Shanahan said he felt like his team was prepared coming in, but did not shy away from the blame.
"I thought we were ready to play. I didn't have the players ready to play," he stated. "I take full responsibility for the game today.
"We did, obviously, horrendous on special teams. We gave up big play after big play. We didn't tackle on defense. Offensively, we did a couple of good things, but couldn't get anything going in the second half.
"I will put that all on me."
It was only the third time under Shanahan in Washington that the Redskins have yielded at least 45 points points, joining the Week 8 loss to Denver and the Week 10 performance vs. Philadelphia in 2010.
The 35-point deficit in the final score was the team's most lopsided loss under Shanahan and the most by a Shanahan-coached team since the Denver Broncos lost 7-44 to the Detroit Lions in Week 9 of the 2007 season.
Shanahan reiterated that his focus from here would be squarely on Atlanta, another playoff team from a year ago in the midst of a 3-10 nightmare season.
While he was disappointed with today's results, his lamentations of today were being channeled into action getting ready for the Falcons.
"My focus is on Atlanta. I'm not going to shy away from that. We've got a lot of work to do," he said. "We did a poor job of getting ready today. I will get them ready next week.
"We've got to play at a much higher level to have a chance to beat a good football team and that is totally on my shoulders.
"I'd like to focus on the job at hand."
Shanahan said that he replaced Griffin III with Kirk Cousins in the start of the fourth quarter when he felt the game was sufficiently out of hand that the Redskins could not come back and win.
Going into Week 15, Shanahan would not confirm whether or not Griffin III or Cousins would start, saying that all positions were up for consideration.
"We'll talk about that later. That's with anybody," Shanahan said. "In any position, we'll talk about that. We'll look at injuries, we'll look at where we are and what direction we're going."
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