While the initial speculation after a wild chain of events this morning centered around whether the resignation of Vinny Cerrato and the signing (I think 11 minutes later) of Bruce Allen as Redskins general manager would mean that Jon Gruden was the eventual apple of Daniel Snyder's eye, don't forget about Mike Shanahan.

Interestingly, Allen joined the Raiders' front office the same year that Shanahan got the head coaching job in Denver. They faced each other every year for nine years until Allen went to run the Buccaneers.

And though Allen and Gruden were a pair in Oakland and Tampa Bay, we hear them joining up in Washington is not a sure thing.

As for the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview a minority for a top position (it was expanded from head coaches to also include the senior front-office position for every team), the Redskins reportedly interviewed two minority candidates for the position. We only can assume that it was not in the three-hour period between announcing Cerrato's resignation and Allen's hiring.

Interesting stuff that we'll be following the rest of today and, I suspect, well beyond that.