Mike Shanahan has a reputation for being good for his fantasy quarterbacks, but that reputation was mostly forged during the Elway years. The table below shows the Broncos team QB fantasy ranks for each of Shanahan's 14 seasons in Denver, along with the breakdown of approximately what percentage of plays were run by each of the team's quarterbacks:

During the John Elway/Terrell Davis years, Shanahan looked like a quarterback expert. Since then, though, Broncos quarterbacks only finished in the top 10 in fantasy points in three of 10 seasons, roughly equivalent to the league average. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to argue that Shanahan hasn't coached a quarterback as talented as McNabb since John Elway was playing. So will McNabb have the career re-birth that Elway experienced? Shanahan came to Denver when Elway was 35 years old; he traded for McNabb and will coach him during his age 34 season.

I looked at all quarterbacks since 2000 to throw at least 1,000 passes over a three-year span for one team, and then start at least 10 games in the fourth season for a new team. The full list of those players is presented below, showing the year the quarterback switched teams, his age on December 31st of that season, his new team, his prior team, his FP/G average in the year before he switched, his FP/G average over his last three seasons with his prior team, and his FP/G in his first year with the new team.

McNabb's 20.0 FP/G average over his last three seasons in Philadelphia is an outlier, as only Jeff Garcia had a higher average. Most of the quarterbacks on the list were not as talented as McNabb, although players like Grbac and Cutler were coming off of big seasons while McNair and Favre were elite players at the tail end of their careers. McNabb comes in tied with Garcia as the third oldest quarterback on the list, behind only elder statesmen like Favre and Flutie.

For the most part, the players on the above table did not improve, although that's not particularly surprising. For one, regression to the mean principles dictates that the top quarterbacks will regress slightly; further, switching teams usually means getting used to a new system and new players, which is bound to cause growing pains unless the new system and new players represent upgrades for the quarterback.

But McNabb doesn't need to match his 20+ points per game average to have value. He's currently being drafted as QB14, and the 14th ranked QB in FP/G last year averaged 17.8 fantasy points per game. On the other hand, most signs point to McNabb's situation being a downgrade. He goes from playing under a passer-friendly offense for Andy Reid with some excellent young targets to a team full of question marks in Washington. It seems unlikely that Shanahan will be better for McNabb than Reid, and the Redskins receivers don't seem to be as capable as what McNabb had with the Eagles. In short, this isn't a situation like what Jake Plummer had when he moved from Arizona (with HC Dave McGinnins, WR Frank Sanders, WR Jason McAddley and eight games of WR David Boston) to join Shanahan in Denver (with WR Shannon Sharpe, WR Ashley Lelie and TE Shannon Sharpe).

If you look at the four QBs who declined the most with their new teams, they mostly suffered downgrades in passing targets:

Elvis Grbac went from WR Derrick Alexander, WR Sylvestor Morris and TE Tony Gonzalez to WR Qadry Ismail, WR Travis Taylor and TE Shannon Sharpe

Jeff Garcia went from WR Terrell Owens, WR Tai Streets and TE Jed Weaver to WR Dennis Northcutt, WR Antonio Bryant and WR Andre' Davis

Brett Favre went from WR Donald Driver, WR Greg Jennings and WR James Jones to WR Jerricho Cotchery, WR Laveranues Coles and TE Dustin Keller

Jay Cutler went from WR Brandon Marshall, WR Eddie Royal, and TE Tony Scheffler to WR Devin Hester, WR Earl Bennett and TE Greg Olsen

For me, McNabb falls under this list. That means it's reasonable to expect some downgrade from his previous numbers. But his current ADP reflects that, of course. That leads me to believe he's being properly valued as of mid-June.

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