Robert Griffin III has been benched for the Washington Redskins game on Sunday. As both a passionate fan of the team, but one who also admires this young man and his family, I support the decision. RG3 just looks like he’s really in a big mental rut, one that gives the team no realistic chance to win, and puts him at serious physical risk. Watching him hold the ball, look indecisive and then get crushed makes me long for the safer days when he simply took off and ran into the open field.
But let’s keep this in a broader perspective and not overreact to the heat of the moment. RG3’s career is not lost—or at least it doesn’t have to be, if everyone involved makes good decisions.
This quarterback’s body has been through hell the last couple years. We’re looking at a torn ACL and a dislocated ankle that come on top of another torn ACL that happened early in his college career. That’s a lot of wear and tear for anybody, much less someone who relies on his legs. In retrospect, the bigger shock would be if RG3 didn’t go through a crisis of confidence in trying to trust his body and play with smooth instincts.
I’m accused by those that know me—and not without cause—of drinking too much RG3 Kool-Aid. It’s fair enough, and even if 90 percent of it was just posturing, that still leaves 10 percent of actual Kool-Aid consumption.
One of the areas that I really did buy into the RG3 hype was that he would be able to come back from his ACL tear with a minimum of disruption.
This was not only RG3 hype, but coming on top of Adrian Peterson’s recovery from a similar injury to win the MVP award a year later. I bought into the theory that we were in a whole new world of medical advancement.
It was a theory that was dead wrong, as both RG3 and Derrick Rose will be happy to attest.
The consequence of that is this—it’s been apparent from the season-opening game against the Houston Texans, that RG3 is overthinking a lot. It’s as though he’s having an on-field debate with himself in the pocket as whether to extend a play or simply to eat the football. By the time the debate is over, the defensive line answers it by crushing him into the turf.
On top of all this, we have an NFL mindset that insists that all quarterbacks be cut from the exact same cookie-cutter template, and be a precise dropback passers in the mold of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Redskins head coach Jay Gruden clearly buys into this, as evidenced by his decision to take the read-option out of the playbook.
In other words, RG3 had to become an entirely different kind of quarterback at precisely the same time he was trying to learn to trust his body all over again after injury. And we’re shocked that this isn’t going well?
Nonetheless, in spite of all this, all is not lost. ProFootballFocus.com grades the films of each player in the NFL after every game. In RG3’s four starts, his composite grade is higher than that for Matthew Stafford in Detroit (prior to today’s win) and Cleveland’s Brian Hoyer, just to name two. The film grades take context into account—did a player have protection, did he have open receivers, etc.
In other words, the PFF grade doesn’t take the stupid, simplistic approach that says a quarterback is solely responsible for wins and losses or even the less foolish, but still unsatisfying approach of just reviewing a QB’s stat line in the box score, as though it’s not dependent on a lot that goes on around him.
Don’t get me wrong—RG3’s grades are still poor, and the above fact is more an indictment of Stafford and Hoyer than anything. Colt McCoy deserves to start Sunday for the Redskins, and quite possibly well beyond that. I like Colt, and will be pulling for him.
But whether RG3’s future is in the nation’s capital or elsewhere, I’ll be pulling for him too. Right now, he just needs time—the time to let his body and mind reintegrate with each other and play with his old athletic smoothness. That’s not a process that gets worked out in a week.
I hope the Redskins choose to be the team that works with him, and use both him and McCoy in 2015. I understand if my own team decides that chore is just too much. But they better do so with eyes wide-open, because an RG3 revival is hardly some wild, off the charts possibility.
Robert Griffin III has been benched for the Washington Redskins game on Sunday. As both a passionate fan of the team, but one who also admires this young man and his family, I support the decision. RG3 just looks like he’s really in a big mental rut, one that gives the team no realistic chance to win, and puts him at serious physical risk. Watching him hold the ball, look indecisive and then get crushed makes me long for the safer days when he simply took off and ran into the open field.
But let’s keep this in a broader perspective and not overreact to the heat of the moment. RG3’s career is not lost—or at least it doesn’t have to be, if everyone involved makes good decisions.
This quarterback’s body has been through hell the last couple years. We’re looking at a torn ACL and a dislocated ankle that come on top of another torn ACL that happened early in his college career. That’s a lot of wear and tear for anybody, much less someone who relies on his legs. In retrospect, the bigger shock would be if RG3 didn’t go through a crisis of confidence in trying to trust his body and play with smooth instincts. I’m accused by those that know me—and not without cause—of drinking too much RG3 Kool-Aid. It’s fair enough, and even if 90 percent of it was just posturing, that still leaves 10 percent of actual Kool-Aid consumption.
One of the areas that I really did buy into the RG3 hype was that he would be able to come back from his ACL tear with a minimum of disruption.
This was not only RG3 hype, but coming on top of Adrian Peterson’s recovery from a similar injury to win the MVP award a year later. I bought into the theory that we were in a whole new world of medical advancement.
It was a theory that was dead wrong, as both RG3 and Derrick Rose will be happy to attest.
The consequence of that is this—it’s been apparent from the season-opening game against the Houston Texans, that RG3 is overthinking a lot. It’s as though he’s having an on-field debate with himself in the pocket as whether to extend a play or simply to eat the football. By the time the debate is over, the defensive line answers it by crushing him into the turf.
On top of all this, we have an NFL mindset that insists that all quarterbacks be cut from the exact same cookie-cutter template, and be a precise dropback passers in the mold of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Redskins head coach Jay Gruden clearly buys into this, as evidenced by his decision to take the read-option out of the playbook.
In other words, RG3 had to become an entirely different kind of quarterback at precisely the same time he was trying to learn to trust his body all over again after injury. And we’re shocked that this isn’t going well?
Nonetheless, in spite of all this, all is not lost. ProFootballFocus.com grades the films of each player in the NFL after every game. In RG3’s four starts, his composite grade is higher than that for Matthew Stafford in Detroit (prior to today’s win) and Cleveland’s Brian Hoyer, just to name two. The film grades take context into account—did a player have protection, did he have open receivers, etc.
In other words, the PFF grade doesn’t take the stupid, simplistic approach that says a quarterback is solely responsible for wins and losses or even the less foolish, but still unsatisfying approach of just reviewing a QB’s stat line in the box score, as though it’s not dependent on a lot that goes on around him.
Don’t get me wrong—RG3’s grades are still poor, and the above fact is more an indictment of Stafford and Hoyer than anything. Colt McCoy deserves to start Sunday for the Redskins, and quite possibly well beyond that. I like Colt, and will be pulling for him.
But whether RG3’s future is in the nation’s capital or elsewhere, I’ll be pulling for him too. Right now, he just needs time—the time to let his body and mind reintegrate with each other and play with his old athletic smoothness. That’s not a process that gets worked out in a week.
I hope the Redskins choose to be the team that works with him, and use both him and McCoy in 2015. I understand if my own team decides that chore is just too much. But they better do so with eyes wide-open, because an RG3 revival is hardly some wild, off the charts possibility.
When I sat down almost four hours ago to watch the Washington Redskins play the Houston Texans, I’d have felt pretty good, as a Redskins fan, if I had known the following…
The defense would play a credible football game, only giving up one big play of note
The punt coverage would be excellent
Alfred Morris would find holes and run the ball effectively
Robert Griffin III would not make any mistakes
That’s generally a pretty good formula for winning football games. So why are the ‘Skins on the wrong side of a 17-6 loss? The short-term answer is this—the ‘Skins got a punt blocked for a touchdown, had an extra point blocked and Jordan Reed Niles Paul fumbled on the 10-yard line when the team looked to be going in (both teams had fumbles in the red zone, which canceled each other out).
The long-term problem though is what’s on my mind and it’s this—are the Redskins aware that yes, it is permissible to have a pass attempt more than five yards down the field? RG3 completed 15 of his first 16 passes and managed to accumulate less than 50 yards in the process. It wasn’t that he was doing anything wrong—the play appeared to be executed as called. It’s that he wasn’t doing anything at all.
I didn’t know what to expect in Week 1, and I was prepared for extremes. When I was in a good mental state, I saw the RG3 of 2012, whirling about, making plays. When I was in a low mood, I saw him trying to force plays and making mistakes. The one thing I didn’t see was a game that would be ultra-vanilla.
There’s nothing wrong with building a football team around the notion of a quarterback playing it safe and not making mistakes. In fact, in my ideal world that’s what I would do. But that presumes certain things—it presumes you’re not just going to play competent on defense, you’re going to wreak havoc. It assumes you won’t have any hiccups—certainly not get a punt blocked. Marty Schottenheimer built an entire career of winning football doing it exactly this way. The Seattle Seahawks could do this every week and go 13-3.
But based on what we’ve seen from the Redskins in recent years, it’s completely unrealistic to think they’ll get through an entire game without doing at least one or two things that are insanely stupid. The hope is that the dumb plays will be kept to a minimum and the playmakers on offense can do enough to compensate. Washington played well enough in the defense, special teams and running game phases for that work. But not only didn’t it work, there was no real effort to even try.
At the heart of this is an identity problem when it comes to RG3. The coaching staff—apparently with the approval of the quarterback himself—seem determined to make him a generic pocket passer. But why do you draft someone with speed to burn and a clear ability to throw down the field—as he did the few times he was allowed in the second half—and then put him in a system that 90 percent of NFL quarterbacks can run.
Let’s be more blunt—if all Washington wants to do is find someone who will make the right read and drop a three-yard dump to the wideout, Scott Tolzien can do that.
The person with the most at stake here is Robert Griffin III. I know he believes he can be a great pocket passer. I think his pocket game gets too much unnecessary heat, a fallout of the Mike Shanahan-orchestrated media campaign last December. But that doesn’t mean I think he’s Peyton Manning in the pocket either. RG3 is pretty good as a pocket quarterback. The only way his team is going to win is if the quarterback is dynamic, and the only way Robert Griffin III is going to be dynamic is if he’s unleashed. I’d rather have a dynamic QB for 12-13 games, even if taking off costs him a handful of starts with injury.
The NFL establishment mindset doesn’t like anyone that varies from the rule that every quarterback must look exactly the same, like they all came off the assembly line. Jay Gruden and RG3 are giving in to that.
I don’t expect Gruden to change, but if I were in a room alone with Robert Griffin III and had the chance to tell him one thing it would simply be this—In sports, as in life, there are times when you have to decide if you’ll succeed or fail based on who you are, not what others would have you be. Your legs and ability to improvise are a part of your athletic package. Embrace it.
Or in a town that loves political slogans, let’s sum it up thusly—Run Robert Run.
When I sat down almost four hours ago to watch the Washington Redskins play the Houston Texans, I’d have felt pretty good, as a Redskins fan, if I had known the following…
The defense would play a credible football game, only giving up one big play of note
The punt coverage would be excellent
Alfred Morris would find holes and run the ball effectively
Robert Griffin III would not make any mistakes
That’s generally a pretty good formula for winning football games. So why are the ‘Skins on the wrong side of a 17-6 loss? The short-term answer is this—the ‘Skins got a punt blocked for a touchdown, had an extra point blocked and Jordan Reed Niles Paul fumbled on the 10-yard line when the team looked to be going in (both teams had fumbles in the red zone, which canceled each other out).
The long-term problem though is what’s on my mind and it’s this—are the Redskins aware that yes, it is permissible to have a pass attempt more than five yards down the field? RG3 completed 15 of his first 16 passes and managed to accumulate less than 50 yards in the process. It wasn’t that he was doing anything wrong—the play appeared to be executed as called. It’s that he wasn’t doing anything at all.
I didn’t know what to expect in Week 1, and I was prepared for extremes. When I was in a good mental state, I saw the RG3 of 2012, whirling about, making plays. When I was in a low mood, I saw him trying to force plays and making mistakes. The one thing I didn’t see was a game that would be ultra-vanilla.
There’s nothing wrong with building a football team around the notion of a quarterback playing it safe and not making mistakes. In fact, in my ideal world that’s what I would do. But that presumes certain things—it presumes you’re not just going to play competent on defense, you’re going to wreak havoc. It assumes you won’t have any hiccups—certainly not get a punt blocked. Marty Schottenheimer built an entire career of winning football doing it exactly this way. The Seattle Seahawks could do this every week and go 13-3.
But based on what we’ve seen from the Redskins in recent years, it’s completely unrealistic to think they’ll get through an entire game without doing at least one or two things that are insanely stupid. The hope is that the dumb plays will be kept to a minimum and the playmakers on offense can do enough to compensate. Washington played well enough in the defense, special teams and running game phases for that work. But not only didn’t it work, there was no real effort to even try.
At the heart of this is an identity problem when it comes to RG3. The coaching staff—apparently with the approval of the quarterback himself—seem determined to make him a generic pocket passer. But why do you draft someone with speed to burn and a clear ability to throw down the field—as he did the few times he was allowed in the second half—and then put him in a system that 90 percent of NFL quarterbacks can run.
Let’s be more blunt—if all Washington wants to do is find someone who will make the right read and drop a three-yard dump to the wideout, Scott Tolzien can do that.
The person with the most at stake here is Robert Griffin III. I know he believes he can be a great pocket passer. I think his pocket game gets too much unnecessary heat, a fallout of the Mike Shanahan-orchestrated media campaign last December. But that doesn’t mean I think he’s Peyton Manning in the pocket either. RG3 is pretty good as a pocket quarterback. The only way his team is going to win is if the quarterback is dynamic, and the only way Robert Griffin III is going to be dynamic is if he’s unleashed. I’d rather have a dynamic QB for 12-13 games, even if taking off costs him a handful of starts with injury.
The NFL establishment mindset doesn’t like anyone that varies from the rule that every quarterback must look exactly the same, like they all came off the assembly line. Jay Gruden and RG3 are giving in to that.
I don’t expect Gruden to change, but if I were in a room alone with Robert Griffin III and had the chance to tell him one thing it would simply be this—In sports, as in life, there are times when you have to decide if you’ll succeed or fail based on who you are, not what others would have you be. Your legs and ability to improvise are a part of your athletic package. Embrace it.
Or in a town that loves political slogans, let’s sum it up thusly—Run Robert Run.
I suppose I should be happy with the Washington Redskins getting another August victory, beating the Cleveland Browns 24-23 last night at FedEx Field. But in the first half of the Redskins-Browns preseason game, I just found too much to get aggravated over.
It starts with the defense, as my Redskins consternation usually does. The numbers say the ‘Skins D kept Cleveland’s offense under firm control, whether it was Brian Hoyer or Johnny Manziel at quarterback. But to watch the game unfold was to see Browns receivers frequently coming open underneath over the middle, with plenty of room to run after the catch. Hoyer and Manziel threw passes into the grass, so it didn’t hurt last night, but against any team with a marginally competent NFL quarterback, those plays will go for a lot of yards.
Yesterday, in a column about a variety of young quarterbacks, I opined that Manziel should simply get the starting job in Cleveland. I still feel that way, but after last night I’m beginning to wonder if the big Manziel-Hoyer debate isn’t akin to what happened in Pittsburgh when I was living there in the early ‘00s. The Steel City was divided over whether Tommy Maddox or Kordell Stewart should be the starter. The answer to that controversy was to draft Ben Roethlisberger. Maybe that’s the case in Cleveland too.
Returning to the Redskins, the offense was more of a mixed bag. The common theme is that nights that were generally solid got ruined with signature bad moments. Let’s start with Robert Griffin III.
I loved RG3’s decision-making, when to run, when not to run and where he went with the ball. His passes were crisp and accurate, and he seemed to be staying in the pocket just a bit longer. There were no cases of happy feet with the pocket started to rumble and he still made a couple plays with his feet.
But on 3rd-and-14 and in field goal range, RG3 made a hideous pass to the right side that got picked off by Joe Haden. A Cleveland blitz was not picked up by Roy Helu, and RG3 had to get rid of the ball immediately. Instead of throwing it out of bounds, he lobbed a softball into coverage that Joe Haden intercepted.
The NFL is a league where games are won and lost by turnovers and plays at signature moments on the field. That’s why seven or eight excellent plays, like RG3 had going coming into that interception, are negated by a single bad decision. It’s one thing if an interception bounces off someone’s hands, or if it’s a spot on the field where it’s worth taking the risk. It’s quite another when the pick is clearly the quarterback’s fault and at a spot on the field where throwing it away clearly makes the most sense.
Fortunately, RG3 was able to undo some of the damage the next possession with a beautiful 48-yard pass to Andre Roberts, hitting the receiver almost perfectly on a fly route. Now it was the offensive line’s turn to spit the bit.
The O-Line did a mostly credible job, opening up holes and providing some decent pass protection. Even when the pressure came on Griffin, it was more due to long coverage by the Browns defensive backs. The cases of the interior line just collapsing right at the snap, as we saw all too often last year, did not happen.
Following the RG3-to-Roberts pass, the Redskins got 1st-and-goal at the one-yard line. Four straight times, Alfred Morris got the ball. Four straight times he had no room to run. I don’t fault Jay Gruden for the play selection—if this were a regular season game, maybe you get a little more creative. But this is a time to find out what the offensive line can do in situations where the defense knows a run is coming. What we found out was not reassuring.
Finally, let’s finish with Kirk Cousins. The Redskins’ backup quarterback continues to showcase a live arm and makes some excellent passes, especially in the intermediate range. But he can be so erratic, that it’s hard to know what to expect from throw to throw. Cousins needs to be more consistent, and whether he’ll get the reps necessary to do so is a fair question, given that this offense is not built around him.
Maybe I’m being too pessimistic, and maybe I’m looking for reasons to be annoyed. That’s possible—if you critique any team hard enough, you can find fault somewhere. I’m aware of that. But after four preseason wins in 2013 led to three regular season wins, I’m looking for reasons beyond the winning and losing to find optimism for 2014. I want to see better than what was on the field last night.
SIGN UP FOR THE FREE NEWSLETTER OF THESPORTSNOTEBOOK
ANALYSIS & HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE FROM AROUND THE SPORTS WORLD
We’re a few hours from kickoff of a preseason NFL Monday Night Game between the Cleveland Browns and Washington Redskins, which means Johnny Manziel and Robert Griffin III get an early stage. It seemed like an ideal opportunity to go over some early thoughts on both of these quarterbacks, along with other high-profile young signal-callers.
Here’s nine thoughts encompassing RG3, Johnny Football, Andrew Luck and Colin Kaepernick, all whom have questions of a different variety looming over them in 2014.
*We’ll begin with RG3, simply because he is the morning star around which the firmament of my NFL universe revolves (I have no idea if that sentence made sense, but you get the general drift). I’m expecting a big year from him. I think his problems of last year were vastly overstated, as the problems of the team were put on his shoulders. Combine that with a full offseason of preparation, a fully healthy knee and a head coach that doesn’t actively hate his guts, and I see an excellent season. What that means for the team is another question, but the Redskins will throw the ball effectively.
*If anything does RG3 in, it will be stubbornness. His competitiveness is his greatest attribute, but there are two areas that it works against him. The first is a stubbornness about not being buttonholed as a read-option quarterback. I believe in his pocket passing ability, but why not embrace the skills that make you different from everyone else? Then, when he does run, RG3 is way too stubborn about wanting to take extra yards at the cost of a big hit. Embrace who you are and run the read-option, but be smart and go down when the defense closes in.
*Directly related to RG3 is the question of his backup. I like Kirk Cousins a lot and believe he can make it as the starting quarterback on a playoff team. He’s got work to do in cutting back on mistakes—he makes the ill-advised pass much more frequently than RG3, but Cousins seems to be a bit more accurate in throwing the 10-15 yard pass. If this season gets away from Washington early and Griffin is not playing well, new head coach Jay Gruden is going to have make a very tough call.
*Manziel is in a tough situation, all too similar to the one RG3 was in for two years. It’s called having Kyle Shanahan as your offensive coordinator. Not only is Kyle mediocre at the job, he clearly prefers working with equally mediocre dropback passers, as opposed to someone more electrifying. The Browns traded up to get Manziel, and now everyone in the organization seems to be actively putting him down. This is the fault of the team, not the quarterback, but as was the case in Washington, the QB will take the rap.
*I believe in Manziel and think he can get it done. I like his fire, his mobility and I like his zip on the ball. By “get it done” in Cleveland, I mean get a team to 7-9 or 8-8—in spite of media hype to the contrary, there are still 21 other starters on any football team not called the quarterback. Johnny will need a lot more help, but the Browns should just go for it and put him in.
*Let’s shift over to Indianapolis, where Andrew Luck enters his third season with a divide of opinion that has traces of Moneyball in it. If you’re a stats guy, you probably don’t like Luck—his numbers weren’t all that different from RG3’s a year ago, which is to say they were only marginally better than Eli Manning, Joe Flacco and other quarterbacks acknowledged to have had bad years. But if you’re an “all he does is win” believer, than Luck’s 22-10 career record speaks for itself.
*Most of the time, I value the opinion of the scouting establishment and seek it out. That’s not the case with Luck. Too many people, starting with ESPN’s draft guru Mel Kiper, compromised their credibility on Luck by feeding the absolutely insane hype that tracked him in his senior year at Stanford. The “once-in-a-generation” rhetoric, a standard which requires that Luck be better than Peyton Manning (five MVPs) and Joe Montana (four Super Bowl rings) to be met. Consequently, when I see the scouting establishment rush to proclaim that Luck has already arrived, I see people engaged in political gamesmanship to protect their reputations.
*There needs to be two different standards on Luck. The first one, applied to those who stoked the flames of insanity in 2011, is that he win more MVPs than Peyton and more Super Bowls than Montana. The more reasonable standard is this—is Luck already pretty good, and set to have a good, long career? Is he capable of raising his game in the clutch? Is he tough and the kind of player who is fun to watch? The answer to all of those is yes.
*Colin Kaepernick is facing a threshold year in San Francisco, with injuries and personnel problems probably limiting the defense a bit. I’m very confident in Kaepernick’s ability to get it done and in fact I would consider him the best of the young quarterbacks. He’s got the arm strength, he’s got the running ability and he’s got what RG3 and Manziel don’t have, and it’s a body that’s built to last. And he’s fearless. Kaepernick is the quarterback I would build a franchise around.
SIGN UP FOR THE FREE NEWSLETTER OF THESPORTSNOTEBOOK
ANALYSIS & HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE FROM AROUND THE SPORTS WORLD
We’re a few hours from kickoff of a preseason NFL Monday Night Game between the Cleveland Browns and Washington Redskins, which means Johnny Manziel and Robert Griffin III get an early stage. It seemed like an ideal opportunity to go over some early thoughts on both of these quarterbacks, along with other high-profile young signal-callers.
Here’s nine thoughts encompassing RG3, Johnny Football, Andrew Luck and Colin Kaepernick, all whom have questions of a different variety looming over them in 2014.
*We’ll begin with RG3, simply because he is the morning star around which the firmament of my NFL universe revolves (I have no idea if that sentence made sense, but you get the general drift). I’m expecting a big year from him. I think his problems of last year were vastly overstated, as the problems of the team were put on his shoulders. Combine that with a full offseason of preparation, a fully healthy knee and a head coach that doesn’t actively hate his guts, and I see an excellent season. What that means for the team is another question, but the Redskins will throw the ball effectively.
*If anything does RG3 in, it will be stubbornness. His competitiveness is his greatest attribute, but there are two areas that it works against him. The first is a stubbornness about not being buttonholed as a read-option quarterback. I believe in his pocket passing ability, but why not embrace the skills that make you different from everyone else? Then, when he does run, RG3 is way too stubborn about wanting to take extra yards at the cost of a big hit. Embrace who you are and run the read-option, but be smart and go down when the defense closes in.
*Directly related to RG3 is the question of his backup. I like Kirk Cousins a lot and believe he can make it as the starting quarterback on a playoff team. He’s got work to do in cutting back on mistakes—he makes the ill-advised pass much more frequently than RG3, but Cousins seems to be a bit more accurate in throwing the 10-15 yard pass. If this season gets away from Washington early and Griffin is not playing well, new head coach Jay Gruden is going to have make a very tough call.
*Manziel is in a tough situation, all too similar to the one RG3 was in for two years. It’s called having Kyle Shanahan as your offensive coordinator. Not only is Kyle mediocre at the job, he clearly prefers working with equally mediocre dropback passers, as opposed to someone more electrifying. The Browns traded up to get Manziel, and now everyone in the organization seems to be actively putting him down. This is the fault of the team, not the quarterback, but as was the case in Washington, the QB will take the rap.
*I believe in Manziel and think he can get it done. I like his fire, his mobility and I like his zip on the ball. By “get it done” in Cleveland, I mean get a team to 7-9 or 8-8—in spite of media hype to the contrary, there are still 21 other starters on any football team not called the quarterback. Johnny will need a lot more help, but the Browns should just go for it and put him in.
*Let’s shift over to Indianapolis, where Andrew Luck enters his third season with a divide of opinion that has traces of Moneyball in it. If you’re a stats guy, you probably don’t like Luck—his numbers weren’t all that different from RG3’s a year ago, which is to say they were only marginally better than Eli Manning, Joe Flacco and other quarterbacks acknowledged to have had bad years. But if you’re an “all he does is win” believer, than Luck’s 22-10 career record speaks for itself.
*Most of the time, I value the opinion of the scouting establishment and seek it out. That’s not the case with Luck. Too many people, starting with ESPN’s draft guru Mel Kiper, compromised their credibility on Luck by feeding the absolutely insane hype that tracked him in his senior year at Stanford. The “once-in-a-generation” rhetoric, a standard which requires that Luck be better than Peyton Manning (five MVPs) and Joe Montana (four Super Bowl rings) to be met. Consequently, when I see the scouting establishment rush to proclaim that Luck has already arrived, I see people engaged in political gamesmanship to protect their reputations.
*There needs to be two different standards on Luck. The first one, applied to those who stoked the flames of insanity in 2011, is that he win more MVPs than Peyton and more Super Bowls than Montana. The more reasonable standard is this—is Luck already pretty good, and set to have a good, long career? Is he capable of raising his game in the clutch? Is he tough and the kind of player who is fun to watch? The answer to all of those is yes.
*Colin Kaepernick is facing a threshold year in San Francisco, with injuries and personnel problems probably limiting the defense a bit. I’m very confident in Kaepernick’s ability to get it done and in fact I would consider him the best of the young quarterbacks. He’s got the arm strength, he’s got the running ability and he’s got what RG3 and Manziel don’t have, and it’s a body that’s built to last. And he’s fearless. Kaepernick is the quarterback I would build a franchise around.
SIGN UP FOR THE FREE NEWSLETTER OF THESPORTSNOTEBOOK
ANALYSIS & HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE FROM AROUND THE SPORTS WORLD
The internal problems of the Washington Redskins have been simmering ever since Robert Griffin III had to leave the field for the final time in last January’s playoff game with the Seattle Seahawks, with a torn ACL. The debate over how much blame–if any–head coach Mike Shanahan deserved reverberated not just through Redskins Nation, but the entire NFL fan base, and set off a summer of speculation over whether the quarterback and the coach were on the same page–or if they even trusted each other.
Now those problems have boiled over in the aftermath of last Sunday’s 24-16 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, a defeat that dropped the Redskins to 3-7 and all but ends their playoff hopes, even in the woeful NFC East. When Washington takes the field this coming Monday Night in San Francisco, they will do so after a week of more dissension (or misunderstanding, depending on who or what you believe), media fire for Griffin, and open talk about whether Shanahan will return next year.
Or put simply, President Obama isn’t the only major figure in Washington suffering from collapsing approval ratings.
What’s going to follow here is a reflection on the major events that have taken place within this organization, written from the perspective of a Redskins fan, and some definite opinions about where the team needs to go from here.
WOOED AND WON OVER BY THE ROOKIE
During this past summer, a friend, whom is not a football fan, but knew of my passion for the Redskins, asked me what I thought of RG3. This friend does share a common interest in the ABC police drama Castle, where a novelist helps the police, and in the process often spins wild theories about who may have committed the crime. My answer to her question was in that context, when I said “Think of me like Castle. I come walking into the precinct and say something like ‘I really think we need to consider the possiblity that RG3 is superhuman and immortal.'” Sane, I am not.
As a result, I have an obvious predisposition to back the quarterback, but it needs to be emphasized that the Redskins precede RG3 in my sports fan life, not vice-versa. To paraphrase Moe Greene in The Godfather, I was rooting for the Redskins when Robert Griffin III was going out with cheerleaders. Actually long before that. I’ve been a ‘Skins fan since I was a kid in the late 1970s, and there is quite literally nothing I have done in my life longer than root for the Washington Redskins.
If push comes to shove, I’m choosing the team over the quarterback, a dividing line a lot of Green Bay Packer fans became familiar with when everything blew up with Brett Favre.
Furthermore, it would completely shock most of the people familiar with my RG3 rhetoric to know that I was a harsh critic of the trade the Redskins made to move up to the #2 pick in the 2012 NFL draft and select him. Washington swapped the sixth position overall with the St. Louis Rams, and gave up two more first-rounders and a second-rounder.
My reasons had little, if anything, to do with RG3 himself. I had become a strong Griffin backer when he was at Baylor, pushing him for the Heisman Trophy at a time when Andrew Luck and Trent Richardson were seen as the clear co-favorites. I had no problem with the notion of him being the second player picked in the draft, and was open to the view of some–including Lou Holtz and Mark May on ESPN–that RG3 should even go first.
The problem I had was that I’ve seen too many can’t-miss quarterbacks come up short. The teams in position to draft them, by definition, have huge holes throughout the roster and the Redskins were no different. What happens is that these rookie quarterbacks get thrust into situations where they have to carry a team, and even if they’re pretty good, they still fall short of expectations and aren’t worth what’s invested. That was my fear with RG3, not to mention that his style of play made it prudent to assume he would miss 3-4 games a year.
In the end, I think very few quarterbacks really carry their teams, and very few really damage their teams. The only way RG3 was going to be worth the price the ‘Skins paid was to be in the former group–even having a solid Pro Bowl career wasn’t going to be sufficient and I felt this was a burden you don’t put on any rookie. If Washington would have simply had the #2 pick in the draft, I was all for taking him. But not to trade up, and certainly not at that price.
It took me about one drive into RG3’s NFL debut in New Orleans to become a believer, as he rifled bullet passes all over the field and led a 40-32 win over the Saints. It was a win in Tampa Bay that upgraded him even further. In a tie game, leadinglate drive, RG3 had scrambled out of the pocket, picked up about 15 yards and looked ready to go out of bounds near the Tampa 40. Suddenly he cut back to the middle of the field, threw his body out there and picked up several more yards, setting up a game-winning field goal.
When the field goal to win the game went through, I was near tears. We not only had a quarterback, we had someone who would do nearly anything to win a football game. At this point, to say I was a believer understates the case. At this point, I made a smitten 16-year-old girl look rational by comparison.
You know the rest of the story. Washington wins seven in a row to win the NFC East–as expected, RG3 misses a couple games with injury and Kirk Couisins does a great job stepping in. Alfred Morris, the rookie running back starts looking the toughest Redskin runner since John Riggins. The ability Shanahan showed to develop a running game in Denver is bearing fruit in Washington and seems an ideal complement for the new weapon at quarterback.
Even the defense actually implements some tackling as a part of its gameplan and the season ends the sweetest way possible–a prime-time win over Dallas in a winner-take-all game. Regardless of what happened in the playoffs, it was set to be a successful season.
THE PLAYOFF CATASTROPHE
The loss to the Seahawks was not the catastrophe. Seattle was favored coming into the game, and only the fact Washington was the home team provided any reason to think it would end otherwise. But when RG3 led a pair of early touchdown drives for a 14-0 lead, it looked like an upset might be in the works. Instead, a play that happened early in the game–when he was tackled near the sidelines and his injured leg seemed to literally fall limp proved to be an ominous foreshadowing.
The fact the quarterback was injured was obvious to all watching the game. As it unfolded, I was clear on two things–that I would have taken him out and put Couisins in. The Redskins had the lead, and it was a good time to put the backup in, when he could still manage the game. A replay of Griffin running out of bounds, his face grimacing in obvious pain, made it clear to everyone watching that he simply couldn’t go on.
But I was also clear that while I think Shanahan erred, I didn’t think it was a terrible decision. Players carry on while injured in big situations all the time. From Willis Reed taking the floor hobbled in the 1970 NBA Finals, to Curt Schilling’s bloody sock in the 2004 American League Championship Series, we lionize the players who go out in pain. On the flip side, Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler has never lived down leaving the 2010 NFC Championship Game at halftime.
Unless you wait until after the fact to second-guess (I know, the media would never do that), you can’t rip a coach for letting a player carry on, when we celebrate that very virtue. Perhaps our celebration of this is misguided, but that’s a separate topic unto itself and it’s not the world that Shanahan and RG3 live in.
Therefore, while I think Shanahan was wrong, I think it was a misdemeanor not a felony–albeit a misdemeanor that would have felony-esque consequences when RG3 finally tore his ACL on an ugly looking play, where his leg again fell limp and he literally collapsed.
MISHANDLING THE AFTERMATH
It’s the aftermath of this injury and the debate over who was at fault that Shanahan began to lose points with me. The head coach stated that Griffin hadn’t said he was hurt. First off, we’ve already established that the entire nation knew the quarterback was hurt. If the head coach didn’t know, it begs the question of what football game he was watching.
Furthermore, since when does a veteran head coach with two Super Bowl rings–more than enough cache to make a decision and live with it–shift blame to a rookie quarterback. The culture of the NFL–not just the media, but players themselves–is biased against those who ask out of a game. It’s the responsibility of the head coach to take the heat off the player and make the correct decision.
Shanahan’s lack of accountability was, at least to me, far more egregious than the decision itself. All he needed to do was say that he pushed too hard to win an NFL playoff game, took responsibility and then moved on. I don’t know if it would have ended the criticism, but it would have with me, and it surely would have at least lessened it nationally.
BATTLE LINES GET DRAWN
What the head coach’s blame-shifting did do was create a climate of mistrust that hadn’t appeared to exist prior to this point. Griffin’s father was openly critical of his son’s coach. Both of the Griffin parents serve their country in the military and it seems safe to presume they aren’t predisposed to questioning authority figures. The fact RG-2 would not only do so, but go public, tells you the mistrust had to be severe. And while I don’t support the action itself–public criticism of the head coach–I get completely why the Griffin family and camp felt the way they did.
The Shanahan-Griffin rift became a topic de jour on a sports talk–with shows like First Take missing Tim Tebow and Favre, the Redskin problems filled a needed vacuum, and those problems also got play on non-soap opera shows like Pardon The Interruption.
There was hope–as pointed out by Michael Wilbon on PTI–that this would just be akin to the early rift faced by Joe Theismann and Joe Gibbs when the latter became head coach in 1981. They worked it out and won two NFC titles and one Super Bowl. But those of us who love the Redskins had to at least think about what side we came down on if things went bad.
For me, the answer to that question was easy. Shanahan took over the Redskins prior to the 2010 season, and in the first two years there was zero sign of progress. I didn’t blame the coach as much as I took it as another indictment of Daniel Snyder’s reign–that the Redskins were simply a dysfunctional operation under which not even a Super Bowl-winning coach could succeed.
Robert Griffin III arrived and proved that, unlike his coach, he could transcend the Snyder dysfunction. There was no question where the dividing line between twenty years of failure and the 2012 NFC East title run fell, and it was with RG3. Choosing between the team and quarterback wasn’t necessary–the two were aligned.
A LOST SEASON
The Washington Redskins have spent the 2013 season looking like a poorly coached football team. The tackling is atrocious. The special teams are worse. The play-calling often gets overly vanilla, the clock management dubious at best. And the lack of accountability reverberates through the organization.
The fact Mike Shanahan continues to have his son Kyle serve as the offensive coordinator is insulting, and a big reason I’m ready to move on. In hiring his son, the head coach is all but telling the world that Kyle’s career advancement is more important than the success of the Washington Redskins. The familial loyalty is great–but just write him a letter of recommendation somewhere else, or have him by a position coach.
This kind of hire is taken by me as an indication that Mike Shananhan is no longer the driven head coach who pushed the Denver Broncos and an aging John Elway over the hump to championships in 1997and 1998. It holds the Washington Redskins hostage–you can’t make an offensive coordinator change without firing the head coach. It’s nepotism and suggests that Shanahan thinks he’s above the standards that apply to every other coach.
The aftermath of the Philadelphia game brought up some accountability issues with RG3 and I think they’re fair. The quarterback said that it seemed the Eagles knew which plays were coming. He later went on to say it was an attempt to praise the Philadelphia defense–and his own team’s veteran linebacker London Fletcher said similar words, as did the Eagle players. But it was taken as a criticism of the Redskin coaches–notably Kyle–and while it may not have been accurate, I don’t blame the media. That’s how I took the words too.
Let’s say for a moment that RG3 intended his words to be critical of the coaches. It’s nothing I haven’t shouted at my TV set countless times over ten games, but this was not the time nor the place to say it. Griffin had not played a good game, had made a bad decision on the game’s final play, and the only correct answer was to simply say “I didn’t get it done.”
Wide receiver Santana Moss said as much earlier this week on a local radio show. Moss, along with Fletcher, are two Redskin players I consider pretty much above reproach. Neither one has ever been a great player, but they’re both veterans who have always been good, at least good enough to start on playoff teams. The fact they’ve labored so hard for so many bad teams should earn them the loyalty of Redskin fans.
Furthermore, Moss was right. I didn’t blame RG3 for the loss–he didn’t play well, but he came up with some big plays, and the entire team looked in the tank for 3 1/2 quarters. But the quarterback gets the glory and the endorsements, and it’s entirely reasonable for the other players to want that same player to just bite his tounge in the press conference and say “We lost because I didn’t get the job done.”
It doesn’t mean thinking fans have to believe it’s true, but it defuses any media storyline and lets everyone focus on the job at hand. RG3 has been asked to shoulder a lot of burdens–both on the field and off, for a weak team that has a rabid fan base, and I can easily cut slack and say this indiscretion–and the correct rebuke issued by Moss– is part of the learning process. But learn from it he must.
MOVING FORWARD
Where do the Washington Redskins go from here? I’ll begin by saying I want to see some of what I saw in the fourth quarter against Philadelphia. Even though the attempt to rally from a 24-zip deficit fell short and RG3 made a bad decision, watching this team–and its quarterback–keep competing when all hope seemed lost was one of the few times this year, I felt some real pride in watching them play. I want to see that the rest of the way, regardless of what the final record looks like.
I have few, if any concerns, about RG3’s performance. If you watch this team play–and I’ve watched every snap of every game and have all the emotional scars to prove it–it’s obvious he, along with Morris, are the only bright spots this team has. If you throw out the first two games–which I think is fair, since it was obvious RG3 couldn’t yet plant his foot to throw–the only truly poor game he’s played was at Denver.
Even the problems in the Philadelphia game were due as much to the fact the Eagles collapsed the pocket immediately on most every pass, and balls had to be repeatedly thrown away because no one got open. And yet in spite of that, when the Redskins got the ball on their own 3-yard line with 3:26 to go and trailing by eight points, I had complete confidence that RG3 was at least going to get us in position to take a shot and win the game.
If I might criss-cross sports, ESPN’s Bill Simmons once wrote in his Book Of Basketball, and other times in his columns, that a mark of a great player is when the fans are completely convinced that he’s about to deliver in spite of an entire game that suggests otherwise. Elway had that ability like no other NFL quarterback I have seen. RG3’s got the same potential–two weeks in a row he’s led long, late drives aimed at tying a game. The one in Minnesota should have succeeded, if not for a dropped pass in the end zone. The one in Philly came closer than rational analysis would have suggested.
What’s more, Griffin is doing this in a year where he’s recovering from his injury, and plays on a team where the poor defense and special teams make it almost mandatory to score each time he has the ball. He’s made more mistakes than at any point of his career, but when you play in this context, you have to take too many chances.
This is also an area where Griffin’s competitiveness and stubborness work against him. He’s got to get that channeled to eat the football a little more, the fateful final play in Philadelphia being Exhibit A.
But at the end of the day, I’ll stand on this–none of the young quarterbacks with whom RG3 is bracketed–Luck, Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick–would be having any more success with this Redskin team. The other three play on real teams, that do a lot of things well, and they can pick their spots and have teammates who can pick them up if they make a mistake. Griffin lacks all of that. And note that all of this is true, even apart from the issue of recovering from injury.
Shanahan is different. It’s time to move on. I give him credit for building the running game with Morris–the Redskins lead the NFL in yards-per-rush–but every other problem with this team can be traced to bad decisions from the head coach.
We can also add in the fact he allows free safety Brandon Meriweather, the dirtiest player in the league to hurt the team weekly with helmet-to-helmet hits that come without consequence from the team. Maybe Shanahan feels Meriweather makes up for his penalties with all his missed tackles.
Washington can go one of two directions for its next head coach. The short-term answer is hire Lovie Smith. The former Chicago Bears coach can get at least clean up the defense and fundamentals and get this team competitive again. Whether you can win a Super Bowl with Lovie is a fair question, but when you’re 3-7 and have been irrelevant for the better part of two decades, let’s not get the cart before the horse.
The other possibility is go into the college ranks and hire someone familiar with the read-option. Kevin Sumlin at Texas A&M is one possibility. Another one is even more intriguing–Art Briles from Baylor. The connection to RG3 is apparent, and this year’s improved Baylor defense show that Briles knows what he’s doing on that side of the ball.
Either way, the Redskins have to look to the future. Get a coach who can link up with RG3 and let them grow together. I’m perfectly comfortable with putting the fate of the franchise in this quarterback’s hands. And even if I’m not, that investment and decision has already been made. The next coaching hire needs to reflect that.
It’s the biggest night in the history of the Baylor-Oklahoma rivalry on Thursday night. Granted, given Baylor’s spotty football record there probably aren’t a lot of a candidates for the honor. But on Thursday, the Bears and Sooners play a game that will decide if Baylor is a legit national championship contender and if Oklahoma still has a shot to win the Big 12.
And there’s one more little kicker to add some spice to the night. The schools’ most prominent recent alums are Washington Redskinsquarterback Robert Griffin III, who won the Heisman Trophy at Baylor in 2011, and Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who set an NCAA freshman rushing record at Oklahoma in 2004. Guess who’s playing on the NFL’s Thursday night game? Yup, the Redskins and Vikes. Maybe RG3 and AP have a little side bet on who wins the college game.
Here’s a few thoughts on each one, starting with the big battle in Waco…
The Baylor offense has been nothing short of spectacular, and the numbers on the stat sheet jump out at you. They’ve scored 70-plus points four times and 69 points another time. Two of the 70-plus games were in Big 12 play.
Quarterback Bryce Petty has only thrown one interception in spite of the aerial show where he generates nearly 14 yards per attempt. Receivers Antwan Goodby and Tevin Reese would each be the leading receivers most anywhere else in America. Running back Lache Seastrunk has rushed for over 100 yards every game but one, in spite of never getting 20 carries a game even once.
There’s one other thing that jumps out at you too though, and it’s the complete lack of credible opposition. The toughest conference opponents Baylor has beaten are West Virginia and Kansas State, a teams that have combined to lose 7 of 11 games within the Big 12. The non-conference slate’s most impressive wins were over Buffalo and UL-Monroe.
Thursday nights’ game starts a schedule stretch were Baylor is also going to see Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and Texas before the regular season ends on December 7. It’s fair to have skepticism regarding the Bears–there’s a big difference between running up points on lousy teams and producing clutch drives in tough situations. We’re about to find out if Art Briles’ team can do the latter.
Oklahoma’s more of a known commodity. They’re a pretty good team, as their wins at Notre Dame and over Texas Tech last week demonstrate. The Sooners have played pretty good defense throughout the year.
The flip side is that they looked completely uncompetitive in a 36-20 loss to Texas that makes Thursday a must-win game for Bob Stoops’ team if they hope to win the Big 12 title. OU has often looked mediocre on the offensive side. They’ve got to hope that either Brennan Clay or Damien Williams can help them control the tempo in the ground game, because quarterback Blake Bell will never win a run-and-gun shootout against Petty.
Given Baylor’s lack of a track record, both this season and in general, I’m stunned that they are slotted as a 15-point favorite. We have no idea how they’ll respond to a real challenge, and we know Oklahoma just finished beating a team in Texas Tech that had been piling up points against bad teams and was undefeated. Regardless of who you think will win, doesn’t it seem excessive to allow OU to cover the spread if they only lose by two touchdowns?
It seems really excessive to me. I’m pulling for Baylor, because I’m a big RG3 fan, I’ll pull for his alma mater and I like Briles. Baylor winning the Big 12–or more–would be a great story. But I’m not ready to buy in on this team as a national contender just yet, and I’m leaning Oklahoma in an exciting win and easy cover.
THE ALUMS FACE OFF IN THE NFL
RG3’s Redskins have a lot on the line on Thursday night in Minneapolis. Their overtime win over San Diego moved Washington to 3-5, which in the woeful NFC East keeps you a game back of division leader Dallas in the loss column, and the Redskins still have a home game with the Cowboys ahead of them. The Vikings lost in Dallas on Sunday, dropping to 1-7, so A.P. can be forgiven if he gets someone to text him a college score during the game.
It was by Week 3 that Griffin started to at least resemble his old self, no longer favoring his front foot when he threw the ball and at least planting comfortably. He’s grown steadily more comfortable, and if you use that week as a benchmark, the Redskins have won three of the five games with RG3 probably as healthy as they can expect in 2013.
The Washington running game is also back and functioning, with Alfred Morris having strung together some nice games and the team ranking 6th in the NFL in rush yardage. If the ‘Skins establish the run–either Morris in the straight-ahead game, or if RG3 runs a few read options–he had a long touchdown run against Minnesota a year ago–the Redskins aren’t going to be stopped offensively, because the Viking pass defense is problematic.
When it comes to problematic though, the Redskins defense qualifies, and that includes a subpar effort against the run, and bad tackling. As a Washington fan, I’ve watched every game this team has played, and though the tackling isn’t as bad as it was early in the year, in no way does the ‘Skins D resemble a fundamentally sound unit. Dare I say this is a problem when Adrian Peterson is the man who’s going to have the football in his hands a lot on Thursday night.
Washington is the better team, and the price is modest–the ‘Skins are only (-130) on the moneyline, while you can bet the Vikes to win outright at (+110). That undoubtedly reflects homefield, the challenges the road team faces on these short weeks and the skepticism that Washington rightly encounters. I’ll still pick my team to win this one–if nothing else, they have to realize that this is the game on which contending in the second half of the season hinges on.
