The Why Is Everything: A Story of Football, Rivalry, and Revolution

When Kyle Shanahan became the NFLs youngest offensive coordinator in 2008, he had one prevailing rule: Tell me the why. If a colleague couldnt justify his position by providing the unassailable reasoning behind it, he was told to get the hell out of Shanahans office. Shanahan and the members of his coaching treeincluding Sean McVay, Mike McDaniel, Raheem Morris, and Matt LaFleurcame up in a sport where innovation was the exception, not the rule. There had been brilliant football minds before, from Paul Brown to Bill Walsh to Bill Belichick. But for the most part, coaches learned a particular system and stuck to it no matter whatno matter the players on their team, no matter what the opponent might do.

This group of young coaches would change all that. The Why Is Everything is the story of old dogmas falling before astonishingly creative new strategies and game plans. Drawing on unmatched access across the league, longtime NFL reporter Mike Silver takes us into the key moments in this still-unfolding revolution, from the education of Mike Shanahan, Kyles father and a two-time Super Bowl champion, in the 1980s; to the Washington Redskins football laboratory in the early 2010s, where the coaches first worked together, shocking the league with their cutting-edge scheme for rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III; to McVays Super Bowl victory in 2022 and Kyle Shanahans Super Bowl agony in 2019 and 2024.

Less than a decade after their emergence, these men are the stars of their profession and have helped propel the NFL to new heights of viewership and drama. With The Why Is Everything, Silver reveals how it all happened, and in the process gives us a timeless account of friendship, rivalry, and the never-ending pursuit of perfection.