The Washington Redskins had a tough offseason. General manager Scot McCloughan was chased out of town in a power struggle. The team couldn’t make a decision on Kirk Cousins and continued to overpay him on the franchise tag. And while it was assumed the ‘Skins wouldn’t be able to keep both Pierre Garcon and Desean Jackson at receiver, it wasn’t expected that both would walk away in free agency.
The rough offseason has left the Redskins underrated. Consider the Las Vegas odds to win the NFC East, with the number indicating the profit one would make on a $100 bet…
How are the Eagles considered a contender and the Redskins not? There’s only one team in the NFC East to be on the right side of .500 the last two years and it’s Washington.
And the Redskins still have the following strengths going for them…
*Kirk Cousins has become a flashpoint for debate in light of his contract status. He also happened to be the guy in the wrong place at the wrong time when the organization was mishandling the RG3 soap opera, leaving a considerable amount of emotional baggage tied up around any discussion of Cousins. But here is the reality—his 67% completion rate was eighth in the league. His 8.1 yards-per-attempt was third. And Cousins’ interceptions, long his downfall, are under control—he was intercepted 2% of the time in 2016, slightly better than average.
*The offensive line has become a good one. Brandon Scherff and Morgan Moses are solid on the left side and Trent Williams continues to go to Pro Bowls at right tackle. Most NFL teams have serious deficiencies here, so there’s a comparative edge to any team with three quality linemen like this.
*The receiving corps is still led at tight end by Jordan Reed, one of the best in the game. Vernon Davis found rejuvenation in Jay Gruden’s system. Jamison Crowder began to emerge as a Julian Edelman-type receiver that holes inside a zone. Gruden’s strength as a coach is his ability to design a passing game that can pop people open in the short-to-medium range game. The key question mark is whether second-year receiver Josh Doctson can replace Jackson as the field-stretching deep threat.
*The secondaryis at least above average. Josh Norman has one corner spot in firm control. D. J. Swearinger is a good safety. The linebackers can generate a pass rush, with Ryan Kerrigan leading the way and Preston Smith is competent in the middle.
The decision of safety Su’a Cravens to leave the team this past weekend to deal with personal issues was a significant loss, especially if Cravens follows through on his plans to leave football. He was an important contributor last year and at 22-years-old, has upside.
The defensive line is still a problem. This is a flawed football team. They aren’t on a level with Green Bay or Seattle. But if you take a serious look at the Cowboys, Giants and especially the Eagles, you see more flawed football teams. The Redskins are a contender and from the Vegas perspective, they are the only worthwhile bet in the NFC East.
The offseason for the Washington Redskins has been an unmitigated disaster to date. They’ve lost both Pierre Garcon and Desean Jackson to free agency. General manager Scot McCloughan, who has overseen the winning records of the last two years, was fired. And the team was unable to work out a long-term deal with Kirk Cousins, instead choosing to franchise tag him for $24 million a year.
All of this is bad enough. The worst of it is that it seems painfully obvious that this organization is still haunted by the ghost of Mike Shanahan and his falling out with RG3, something made manifest in the botched handling of the Cousins situation.
For the sake of this blog post, I have to assume the reader is familiar with the particulars of the Shanahan-RG3-Cousins love triangle. It’s a subject that is fraught with layers of intrigue—everything from power to fame to race to football strategy. It would make for a heckuva soap opera, which is to say it’s a uniquely Redskins tale.
We all know that it started when Redskins owner Dan Snyder wanted to trade up in the 2012 NFL draft to RG3. Shanahan, entering his third year as head coach with a team showing no signs of life, wasn’t enthusiastic. He preferred to stay at the #6 overall spot.
Revisionist history written by pro-Shanahan media forces have made it out that he wanted Cousins all along. In reality, the rumors of the time were that the coach (who doubled as GM) also had his eye on Ryan Tannehill (who eventually went ninth overall to Miami). Either way, the point is the coach wanted a more traditional NFL pocket-passer. The owner wanted the electric Griffin, who brought a new style of play.
At this point, most sane people in Shanahan’s position would have chosen one of two options…
Option 1: Remind the owner why he brought you on board—to have a football man making football decisions and that he was paying you $7 million a year to make these decisions. If all else failed, remind him of the ironclad language in your contract that gave you complete authority over personnel decisions (a perk very few coaches enjoy). Tell him you’re picking Tannehill/Cousins and to judge you by the results.
Option 2: Defer to the owner’s wishes and do everything in your power to make it a success.
Somehow Shanahan found a Door #3 in this seemingly simple binary equation. It was to give the owner what he wanted—trade up to get RG3. And also take what he wanted—pick Cousins in the fourth round. Then work to steadily undermine the owner’s preferred quarterback through a series of steady media leaks, build up Cousins beyond all reasonable expectation, and then leave RG3 playing on an injured knee—an act so egregious that any conventional employer would have been sued for culpable negligence.
Cousins ended up in the middle of all this. By the time his backers were done building him up, he became the second coming of Dan Marino. His detractors pounced on every failing. And for the sake of honesty, I was in the latter group—especially after the four-interception atrocity against the Giants on a Thursday night in 2014.
It was a poisonous debate that ripped apart Redskins Nation and the result is that even after two years as the starter, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of middle ground on Cousins. Some of that is understandable—on the one hand, he puts up big numbers and the team has gone 17-14-1 over the last two years—a virtual golden age in the Snyder era. On the other hand, the team spent heavily on an extremely good group of receivers and Cousins still has a tendency to play down at the biggest moment—how about another atrocious performance against the Giants at home, this one in Week 17 last year that cost a playoff berth?
My ultimate point is not to make a case for or against Cousins. My bigger question is to wonder how much the opinions of the Redskins—most importantly, Dan Snyder and righthand man Bruce Allen—are being influenced by anger at Shanahan and not wanting to prove him right by giving Cousins a long-term contract.
If that’s the case, it’s misplaced bitterness. Wherever you fall on the spectrum of opinion regarding Cousins, there’s no doubt he’s one of the twenty or so legitimate starting quarterbacks in the NFL. And there’s no doubt that the market on such quarterbacks is headed upward—witness the $15 million Mike Glennon got from the Bears, making him higher paid than Aaron Rodgers.
A contract given to Cousins now would, strictly speaking, be overpaying him. But by the time the contract ran its course and the market finished its correction, it would probably be reasonable. Keeping him on the escalating franchise tag costs is grossly inefficient and makes winning in a salary-cap league to be virtually impossible.
Mike Shanahan’s handling of Robert Griffin III will never be vindicated and I consider the treatment of the Griffin family as a whole to be one of the most embarrassing episodes in a recent franchise history that has all too many embarrassments.
But whatever the questionable means Shanahan used to get and promote Kirk Cousins, the fact remains that Cousins is a viable NFL starter. And if the Redskins refuse to sign him to a long-term deal because they don’t want to give their former coach a perceived win—well, then it’s just letting Shanahan bleed this organization one last time.
I admit it—calling the Washington Redskins 2015 NFC East title a “Triumph of the System” may be a little over the top. It sounds like a title you’d give to a book about the Brady/Belichick era in New England or Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal political coalition, rather than about a team that they may still finish .500 and won’t beat a single winning team. But after 23 years of dysfunction this feels like scaling the heights. And what strikes me most is the complete contrast between this division crown and the last one in 2012.
The 2012 NFC East title run was keyed almost exclusively by RG3. Yes, he got significant help from Alfred Morris. One-man shows aren’t possible in the literal sense in football. But this one was pretty darn close.
But beneath the glitter and the flash of RG3 there were serious problems most everywhere on the team, within the organization and on the coaching staff. When Griffin’s knee gave out in that fateful playoff game against Seattle, the Redskins spent the next two years seeing how bad of a football team they truly were completely exposed.
This time is different. Whereas there was no doubt about who deserved primary credit for the 2012 NFC East crown, the 2015 NFC East title has an array of people lining up to get accolades…
*Any system starts at the top and ever since Daniel Snyder bought the team in 1999, that’s been a source of dread for those of us who call ourselves Redskins fans. But there is one thing not even the biggest Snyder critic would ever deny and it’s that the man desperately wants to win. That zeal often led to Snyder getting in his own way, but he showed this past offseason just how bad he wanted to win when he voluntarily stepped back.
Snyder had spent fifteen years trying an array of organizational approaches—there was the all-powerful big-name head coach, most notably Joe Gibbs’ return and then Mike Shanahan. There was the unknown assistant, epitomized by Jim Zorn. There was the hotshot college coach—remember Steve Spurrier? But there was one thing Danny Snyder hadn’t tried and it was this—an all-powerful general manager who controlled personnel and then putting a businessman/football person in between Snyder and the football operation.
Enter Scot McCloughan. The man with a good reputation as a talent evaluator became the general manager. He replaced Bruce Allen, who’s a good man and a reasonably good football mind—at least for a businessman. But Allen was in over his head as the general manager. He’s now in a good role working with Snyder on the business side and Allen has enough football knowledge to serve as a good go-between between Snyder and McCloughan.
McCloughan and head coach Jay Gruden had a clear division of authority—the former would pick the players and the latter would decide who played. And they combined to use Snyder’s commitment to winning to make the single best hire of the entire offseason by any team.
Bill Callahan was the hottest assistant coach on the market. A veteran offensive line coach, widely regarded as one of the game’s best, had just finished overseeing an outstanding Dallas Cowboy front five. Callahan was a hot commodity. Salary cap considerations don’t come into play on a hire like this. Only the commitment of the front office does, and Snyder opened the vault to let McCloughan and Gruden make the hire.
The Redskins now had a mentor for an offensive line that was absolutely terrible. McCloughan then made sure Callahan had at least some young talent to work with. He used the fifth overall pick in the NFL draft to take guard Brandon Scherff from Iowa.
Scherff wasn’t the only display of straight-line organizational thinking. The greatest strength of Jay Gruden is his ability to pop receivers open underneath in the short passing game, seemingly at will. The drafting of Duke’s Jamison Crowder, a Wes Welker-type receiver, fit that system perfectly.
Gruden made another hire for the coaching staff. This wasn’t a case of a bidding war over a prominent candidate who was a slam-dunk. This was a high risk decision that drew immediate criticism. He hired Joe Barry as defensive coordinator. Barry’s previous experience as a coordinator was with the Detroit Lions team of 2008 that went 0-16. I vowed to give Barry a chance, but be assured I was ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble. Others weren’t even that patient.
But this proved to be a big-time hire by Gruden. The Redskins stopped missing tackles and blowing coverages at every turn. The defense didn’t turn into the Legion of Boom, but they became credible. After finishing 29th in the league in points allowed last season, the 2015 Redskins are currently 16th in scoring defense. The improved tackling came in conjunction with more disciplined play generally. The Redskins stopped making a habit of jumping offsides or piling up false start penalties. They showed up and played hard and, for the most part, at least intelligently every Sunday.
These virtues—playing hard and smart, making tackles and not jumping offsides—aren’t exactly rocket science. But in a league with as much parity as the NFL, I’ve always felt that teams who at least do this can jump from the scrap heap to the at least respectability very quickly.
Think of it like starting a diet—you can lose the first 10-15 pounds pretty quickly just by dropping the water weight. The rest of the program is slower and more demanding, but you can get that quick hit just by beginning. The 2015 Washington Redskins finally dropped the water weight. And they had the good fortune to be in a division where that was sufficient.
Watching the Redskin offensive line this year has been a pleasure. I key on Scherff at the beginning of each snap, and he consistently stands his man up and is rarely beaten. Last night in Philly he was only beaten once. Scherff often first takes out his man, then slides to the outside to help tackle Morgan Moses with an edge rusher. It’s not unusual for Callahan’s schemes to have Scherff kick out on a passing play—akin to blocking for a classic power sweep—and knock out a man on the edge.
Moses hasn’t been quite that good, but he’s an improving player. Trent Williams is a steady veteran at the other tackle spot. It’s not a great offensive line, but the pass protection this year has been consistently outstanding.
And you aren’t going to cover these receivers very long. Jordan Reed is finally having his first healthy season and has caught 83 passes for 907 yards. He simply can’t be stopped underneath, he’s great after the catch and is a downfield threat because of his speed and height. Reed was a favorite target of RG3’s in 2013 before injuries became a problem. Now Reed is a favorite of Kirk Cousins.
If you cover Reed underneath, DeSean Jackson stretches the field. The explosion of the Redskins offense can be precisely traced to Jackson’s return from his hamstring injury in Week 9. During last night’s NFL Network telecast, there was a graphic showing the drastically improved numbers from Cousins in the second half of the season. That’s not a coincidence—it tracks exactly with having DeSean available. Now these underneath passes that Gruden devises have more room, and if things get too tight, Jackson can loosen it up.
Pierre Garcon, a quality receiver himself, who can make tough catches over the middle, can get lost in the shuffle here but he’s made some big plays this year—a tough game-winner in the first meeting with Philadelphia being most prominent. Garcon and Crowder are consistently open when defenses get too preoccupied with Reed and Jackson.
And with that we come to Kirk Daniel Cousins.
The term used to describe Cousins—including by the quarterback himself—is that of a “distributor.” Cousins likes it because it’s more pro-active than “game manager” which implies a quarterback who plays scared. A “distributor” knows he has playmakers and need simply get them the football.
The combination of pass protection, excellent targets, a well-designed passing game and a defense that ensures the offense doesn’t feel constant pressure has allowed Cousins to flourish. He doesn’t press the way he did last year when one mistake too often led to an avalanche of errors. And paradoxically, the reduced responsibility on Cousins has led to greater production.
Cousins is an excellent rhythm passer. His improvisational skills certainly aren’t those of RG3 and they’re inferior to Colt McCoy’s. But when I’m watching the offensive line and Scherff off the snap and see the opposing pass rush held at bay, I instinctively think “this is a completion.” If you don’t get Kirk Cousins off his spot, he’s going to carve you up. And in the past several weeks, his game has drastically improved. He’s gone from completing simply the easy throws to confidently rifling the ball into some tighter windows.
I came into the season a deep Cousins skeptic. The first half of the season did nothing to change my mind. To be honest, I still think Colt McCoy could have done all this and more if he’d gotten the same vote of confidence Cousins did from the coaching staff. RG3, obviously, is an entirely separate subject with its own unique soap opera dynamic, with baggage caused by the previous head coach.
But whoever could have done this, the fact remains that Kirk Cousins has done it. He’s in a groove and improving steadily. Gruden and McCloughan believe in him. There’s no constant debate over who should be the quarterback. Just drop and distribute. That’s all Kirk has to do, and he’s doing it extremely well right now.
And that’s a very good place for an organization to be. The RG3 Run of 2012 was the single most intoxicating experience I’ve ever enjoyed as a sports fan (well, other than the 35 beers I drank the night the Reds won the 1990 World Series. I mean non-alcoholic intoxication). But the hangover was awful. Or to pick another dietary analogy, the RG3 year was like eating a lot of cotton candy. It tasted great, but when he got hurt, the stomach aches were unbearable. Whereas this 2015 team is like a solid meal, with all the food groups represented. It doesn’t give you that rush. But it feels very filling when it’s over.
It’s not over for the Washington Redskins. Not this season and the developmental process can’t be over either. It’s important for the team to go into the offseason recognizing that we are, in fact, a mediocre team. We’re just in the right division and in a place in our history where mediocrity feels great.
There are still needs. The center position is awful and the biggest reason the running game often struggles to get untracked. The interior linebackers and safeties need improvement. But we’re no longer one ACL tear away from complete collapse. We have a System that pieces can be plugged into. And for now, that’s enough for me.
The Washington Redskins got everything they needed on Thanksgiving Day. The Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys not only lost, but looked the part of being completely finished. The Eagles appear to have mailed it on Chip Kelly. The Cowboys lost Tony Romo again. If that’s the case, it means the NFC East is a two-team race—the Redskins at 4-6 and the New York Giants at 5-5.
These two teams go head-to-head on Sunday in FedEx Field. If you couple this game with Washington’s ensuing Monday Night home date with Dallas, is it fair to wonder if the jobs of the head coach and quarterback are on the line?
The Redskins have made admirable progress in a lot of areas. The defense, woeful even in the 2012 NFC East title run, is now in the middle of the league. The offensive line, an absolute train wreck last year, has been strengthened by first-round draft pick Brandon Scherff, the growth of Morgan Moses and the mostly steady health of Trent Williams. There’s a long way to go for this group, as there is for the defense, but units that were once disaster areas are now up to average.
“Average” is what has mostly defined the Redskin football season to this point. They’ve put up some great performances against mediocre competition—home wins against New Orleans, Tampa Bay, St. Louis and Philadelphia. Washington has looked overmatched against Carolina and New England, and in spots like a Thursday Night road loss to the Giants.
Now there’s two consecutive home games against NFC East rivals who are either .500 or worse. If you win both, you’ve got a great shot to win the division. Lose both, and it’s another lost December in the nation’s capital. And that brings us to the jobs of head coach Jay Gruden and quarterback Kirk Cousins.
Gruden rolled the dice with his future shortly before the season started when he benched RG3 and proclaimed Cousins to be the guy. The head coach, who was ready to crush RG3 publicly after a handful of injury-riddled games in 2014, made every excuse possible for Cousins, including an “it was windy” explanation for a poor game against the Jets that drew ridicule even from RG3’s harshest media critics in the Beltway.
As one who doesn’t care for the way Gruden handled the RG3 situation, I can’t ignore the fact that I like what I see from a lot of this team. The positives above are the reason. They look more like a disciplined football team and less like a circus. I’m less sold on Cousins—the nature of the offense makes the quarterback position more about just dumping the ball short to open receivers—but there’s no denying that the quarterback has matured this season and if nothing else, simply having a quarterback who stays healthy allows the team to grow around him.
If you ask me today, I feel like the Redskins have something pretty good developing and I’d bring the Gruden/Cousins ticket back to face a true election year in 2016. If the team sweeps the Cowboys and Giants and at least hangs in the NFC East race, I’m sure that decision becomes a slam dunk. Even a split, while probably fatal to this year’s playoff hopes, would still validate some gradual progress and merit their return.
But lose both, drop to 4-8 and face another cold December watching irrelevant football? That’s another story. I’m a lot more patient than Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, and if I’d be ready to throw in the towel at that point, how much more annoyed would the man who actually makes the decisions be? It’s not unreasonable to think Gruden and Cousins are putting their jobs on the line these next two weeks.
The Washington Redskins have hung in there in the early part of the 2015 season. The record is only 2- and the schedule is about to get a lot tougher, but there’s a system and cohesiveness developing that those of us who are Redskins fans haven’t seen in some time.
I’m not the biggest believer in Kirk Cousins at quarterback. I think he was often oversold by people whose agenda was more anti-RG3. But the reality was that if the team was not going to return to the offensive style of 2012, with the quarterback using his legs along with his arm, then there was no discernible difference between RG3 and Cousins.
And given that Cousins is more durable and going with him at least quieted all the noise in Redskins Park, that made him the better choice (whether Cousins is better than Colt McCoy is another subject entirely and one I’m not ready to visit right now).
I say this because I don’t want my praise of the current team to be interpreted as any kind of implication that RG3 could not have executed this same offense. He could have. But he would not have been the transcendent player he once was. I love the guy, but until I hear him stand up and say that he wants to run the same read-option style offense that made him a star, there’s just nothing to be gained by going down that path again.
Now, let’s move forward. This Redskin team is running the football. The stat sheet tells us they get 4.4 yards-per-attempt on the ground, balanced between Alfred Morris and Matt Jones. Watching them in action, we see an offensive line and two backs that get very physical at the point of attack. It’s a long way to the era of The Hogs, but it’s least an effort to finally move in that direction.
I like the progress of rookie right guard Brandon Scherff. He has a lot of work to do in pass protection, but he and another young lineman, right tackle Morgan Moses are playing well together. Trent Williams is always reliable at the left tackle spot. There are injury problems—guard Shawn Lauvao is out for the year with an ankle injury, but the decision to spend big money on highly regarded offensive line coach Bill Callahan is clearly paying dividends.
The run defense is also playing well, giving up just 3.9 yards-per-rush, while the league average is 4.1. It’s created a game flow where the Redskins have steady control of the point of attack. The offensive style of Jay Gruden then fits nicely into that.
Gruden’s biggest contribution to this team is his ability to design pass routes that pop receivers open underneath consistently. It’s an approach that fits receivers like Pierre Garcon and rookie Jamison Crowder—whom I love—perfectly. The health of Jordan Reed has been a big boost to this offense and the return of DeSean Jackson will provide a badly needed deep threat.
Crowder and Matt Jones are two notable pieces of what looks like a good draft class, the most obvious fruit of putting new general manager Scot McCloughan in charge. That’s in addition to Scherff and linebacker Preston Smith, who looks like a playmaker. The quality of this roster is better than any Redskins team since the end of the second Joe Gibbs era following the 2007 season and McCloughan is the reason.
It’s this framework that Cousins steps into. The media focus is on his interceptions and that’s the key stat. He completes a high percentage—68.6%. They’re mostly short “system” throws, and he only gets 6.6 YPA, which means you have to avoid mistakes, rely on the run to put you in manageable situations and then just make your throws. Cousins has done that against the Eagles and Rams the result was victories. He did not do that against the Giants and the result was a loss. The Dolphins game was a mixed bag—there were two interceptions, but one was more about a spectacular defensive play—and it was a tough loss.
The NFC East remains wide open, with the Redskins, Giants and Cowboys all at 2-2, Dallas still missing Tony Romo and Dez Bryant, and Philadelphia at 1-3 and looking ready to come apart at the seams, it’s anyone’s to take.
These next three weeks are going to tell us a lot about the Redskins can be in 2015. The next two games are road trips to face the Falcons and Jets before coming back home to host Tampa Bay and then going into the bye week. If a miracle NFC East title run is in the works, Washington needs to steal a road upset and take care of business at home.
More realistically, they need to make sure they beat Tampa and I’d like to see something other than getting 50 dropped on us by Atlanta and then getting collared by the New York defense. Two respectable road losses followed by a home win wouldn’t signify a playoff run, but it would keep the hope of getting to .500 alive.
All reports are that the Washington Redskins have decided against bringing back Colt McCoy next season. I think this is a significant mistake, and as a Redskins fan I don’t know if I’m more depressed, furious or just plain crushed by this news.
Before going further, I want to remove one potential misconception. My strong desire to have McCoy back in burgundy-and-gold is *not* rooted in any animosity towards Robert Griffin III. RG3 is a lightning rod flash point in a lot of these discussions and I prefer to stay away from that.
I like Robert, he’s a high-character player and a hard worker who got royally screwed by his first head coach and now plays for a blowhard incompetent boss. What he can do when he’s healthy is a matter of record. But what’s also a matter of record is that his capacity to stay healthy has to be subject to serious skepticism.
Wishful thinking is not a plan. A plan would be having a quarterback with a similar skillset to RG3, who has his own demonstrated ability to run an offense and is reasonably interchangeable with Griffin. Colt McCoy fits the bill perfectly.
McCoy’s physical tools are obviously not on par with RG3’s, but McCoy is capable of playing on the move—rolling pockets, mixing in some read-option, etc. If RG3 is hurt or doesn’t play well, you can insert McCoy in without changing the offense. Kirk Cousins doesn’t give you that same luxury.
Furthermore, it was obvious all last season that RG3 has deeper problems than just staying healthy. He wasn’t confident anymore, the swagger of 2012 and even 2013 (when he took far too much blame) was gone. He looked like someone who no longer trusted his body, no longer played on instinct and was just overthinking everything in spades. It’s perfectly understandable, given what the kid’s lower body has been through. But it’s also a serious problem.
Cousins has his own mental hangups as well, and it’s that he shrinks into a shell every time he makes mistake. In terms of skill-set, Cousins could be a poor man’s Andrew Luck—throw a nice ball down the field, make mistakes, but overcome them with big plays over the top. But skillset’s not enough—Cousins lacked Luck’s mental toughness at putting mistakes behind him.
Thus, Colt McCoy might not have had the same physical tools as either of the other two quarterbacks, but he was the one guy whose head was screwed on right and who played football like he knew who he was and what he was trying to do.
But apparently, all that is out the window, because he doesn’t have enough of a skillset to impress the Redskin coaches or front office. You know, last I checked, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady weren’t proto-type athletes. And the last I checked, they worked out okay as starters. Is it so unreasonable to think that Colt McCoy could have sufficed as the foil for RG3 and potential starter if the latter can’t himself worked out of his funk? I don’t think so.
So instead we have two quarterbacks with opposite skillsets, and for whom the only common thread is they each need a sports therapist more than an offensive coordinator. And the quarterback who played the best in 2014 is gone. Yes, it’s really difficult to understand why the Washington Redskins can’t win. I think I’m just going into a corner somewhere and weep.
There’s one thing I can say about my beloved Washington Redskins—they may always let me down, but they’ll never abandon me. Even in February, they’re still making news and keeping themselves on the frontburner. So when I should be following college hoops, the NBA and the NHL, it’s the Redskins who are today’s topic.
Head coach Jay Gruden announced RG3 will enter training camp as the clear #1 starter. No open competition as previously promised, and it begs the question of whether the Washington Redskins have any idea what they’re doing as an organization.
The purpose of this is to focus on organizational dysfunction, not one’s opinion of RG3, but you can’t separate the two completely. Regular readers of TheSportsNotebook.com have read my previous posts on all facets of his game and career, but for anyone new, I’ll sum it up as concisely as I can:
*I am huge fan of Robert Griffin III, not simply because he’s the quarterback of my favorite team, but because I simply like him and admire his family for their service to this country. I think he’s good guy and has gotten an unfair rap in the media for missteps that are fairly minor.
*I think criticisms of his play the last two years fail to consider that he’s had a torn ACL and dislocated ankle, each extremely serious injuries. The last two seasons he was healthy were 2011 and 2012—and he has a Heisman Trophy and NFL Rookie of the Year to show for it.
*The flip side, is that I’m extremely dubious that he can stay healthy. You need only look at his physical build to understand why.
*I’m also really concerned about where he’s at mentally right now. RG3 himself used the phrase “at war with myself” to discuss trying to decide whether to take off and run or to stay in the pocket. The consequence was that he looked extremely tentative and the repeated poundings he took were more unsafe than anything he did outside the pocket.
*The result of this is that right now, if I was coaching the Redskins and had to go win a football game, I would start Colt McCoy. I just don’t feel like RG3 is in a good place and I fear he never will be again, at least not in Washington.
That brings us to our current context. After a season in which Jay Gruden repeatedly crushed RG3 in public, benched him and all but shouted to the world “I don’t like this guy”, the organization sent out an offseason letter to season-ticket holders not even mentioning the quarterback as one of the team’s building blocks for next year. No quarterback was listed in a group that included Alfred Morris, Ryan Kerrigan and others.
All of that clearly suggests a team—which has a new general manager in Scot McCloughan—going in a different direction. Then comes the events of this week in which the head coach puts himself clearly behind Griffin as the starter.
Whatever you think should happen with RG3 and the quarterback position, all of this suggests a team that doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going. That’s been the case all too often, especially with this quarterback. It’s an inability to make one core decision and then follow it up with subordinate decisions that are consistent. It’s called “dysfunction”, which is the most commonly used term outsiders use to describe the Washington Redskins organization.
It goes back to when RG3 was drafted in the spring of 2012. Daniel Snyder and Bruce Allen wanted him. Mike Shanahan didn’t. So after picking a multi-talented quarterback with a unique skillset, the Redskins follow it up by drafting a more conventional quarterback in Kirk Cousins the same year. That’s dysfunction.
RG3 came into the league at a time when more quarterbacks were starting to run and the read-option was starting to be used at the NFL level for the first time, at least on any consistent basis. Tim Tebow did it in his famous run with the Denver Broncos in 2011. Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick relied heavily on their legs. And though Andrew Luck doesn’t run the read-option, he also relied on his running (and still does) far more than is generally realized.
What was clear when it came to quarterbacks like RG3, was that if you were going to build around them it to be an organizational commitment at every level. You needed to still an offensive system tailored to his talents, rather than jamming him into an orthodox NFL set. You would need to acquire a backup quarterback of a similar skillset, to ensure continuity in the case of injury.
Given this, the Redskins had two choices in the spring of 2012. One was to stay at #6 in the draft, invest in defense with their early picks, and then take Kirk Cousins later. Another was to trade up, draft RG3 and go all in. What wouldn’t work would be to first take RG3, then take Cousins and create organizational inconsistency. Naturally, that’s exactly what the Redskins did.
If I were in charge, I would re-sign Colt McCoy, who has good mobility and can also run read-option. Make it clear that this is the offensive system. Have an open competition for the quarterback position. If RG3’s head is in the right place, he’ll clearly win it. If he doesn’t, a change of system won’t be required for McCoy, and you have the option (no pun intended) of making quarterback changes during the season without wholesale disruption.
That’s what I’d do. But what I want more than anything is for the Washington Redskins to decide what they’re about offensively. Trying to turn RG3 into a pure pocket passer and forgoing the use of his incredible talents elsewhere is just stupid. If you don’t want to use his skillsets, just let him go and quit the public bashing. If you do want him, then go all-in and make a commitment. The dysfunction has become tiring and unfair to everyone involved.
The rumors are rife that Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden not only wants to move on from Robert Griffin III, but that he would prefer to bring in an entirely new quarterback, also moving on from Kirk Cousins and Colt McCoy—at least as a starter. The message of owner Daniel Snyder to this should be simple—enough is enough. Make it work with what you have.
Gruden came to the Redskins with a reputation as a quarterback genius, something entirely undeserved and based on the premise that his work in Cincinnati had somehow turned Andy Dalton into the next Dan Marino. In reality, while Gruden was a competent offensive coordinator in Cincy, he was also the second-best coordinator on his own staff. The best was defensive guru Mike Zimmer, who got the Minnesota Vikings head job.
But deserved or not, Gruden’s reputation got the job and he was hired with the mandate to develop RG3. After four starts, Gruden decided that wasn’t going to work. Now—if the rumors are true—he’s apparently decided that a third-round pick in Cousins can’t work, and that another former first-rounder, in McCoy can’t work either.
This quarterback carousel simply has to stop. Bad teams and bad organizations—and my beloved Washington Redskins are most definitely both—have a tendency to go for quick fixes, which means either change the head coach or change the quarterback. In reality, the Redskins problems are much deeper.
To watch the Redskins is to see a team that looks undisciplined and lacks cohesion. They pile up penalties on special teams, consistently creating field position problems. They don’t make tackles in the open field. They commit false starts in the red zone. These problems all pre-date Gruden and he did not create them. After three-quarters of a season, it’s also apparent he hasn’t been able to fix them.
When RG3 was a rookie, his skills were transcendent enough to overcome all that. Since his ACL tear at the end of that year, the subsequent ankle dislocation this year and general loss of confidence and identity, those flaws in the rest of the team are on full display.
Fixing these basic problems has to be the priority for this organization. Any discussion of new personnel needs to focus on the offensive line and the secondary. The focus of the coaching staff needs to be making sure the next edition of the Redskins looks more like a disciplined football team and less like chaos on display.
It’s a cop-out for Gruden or anyone else to go around demanding a new quarterback, at least for now. If the head coach fixes the problems mentioned, gets this team to 8-8, and nothing resolves itself at quarterback, then maybe he can have a new toy at the QB position. Right now, he needs to eat his vegetables first and build the defense, the offensive line and the general team discipline.
There’s a myth that you can’t win in the NFL without a really good quarterback. The people at ProFootballFocus.com watch film and grade every player at every position. The grade of RG3—a poor one—still exceeds that of Brian Hoyer in Cleveland and Matthew Stafford in Detroit. Those teams are a combined 15-9, and that’s with Hoyer possibly now losing his job to Johnny Manziel. The reason? Both of those teams play defense.
So it’s time for Jay Gruden to live up to his reputation, or at least a small part of it. I don’t care who he starts, be it RG3, Colt, or Cousins. I don’t care if it’s some combination of the three. Heck, I don’t care if he wants to use them as the shuttle to bring in plays from the sidelines. What I want to see is him figure out to make it work. And by “work”, I just mean win as many as you lose. Not even make the playoffs. Those aren’t exactly high expectations.
The message “make it work with what you have” applies to those of us who are critics of the head coach as well. This was a hire that I hated from the moment it was made, and there’s a big part of me that just wants to cut the cord after one year. But that isn’t going to be the answer either. The tone needs to be set throughout this organization and fan base—at least for 2015, Jay Gruden is our coach, and RG3/Colt/Cousins are the quarterbacks. And within that framework we have to win eight games by fixing the aspects of a football team that don’t get the headlines.
The rumors are rife that Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden not only wants to move on from Robert Griffin III, but that he would prefer to bring in an entirely new quarterback, also moving on from Kirk Cousins and Colt McCoy—at least as a starter. The message of owner Daniel Snyder to this should be simple—enough is enough. Make it work with what you have.
Gruden came to the Redskins with a reputation as a quarterback genius, something entirely undeserved and based on the premise that his work in Cincinnati had somehow turned Andy Dalton into the next Dan Marino. In reality, while Gruden was a competent offensive coordinator in Cincy, he was also the second-best coordinator on his own staff. The best was defensive guru Mike Zimmer, who got the Minnesota Vikings head job.
But deserved or not, Gruden’s reputation got the job and he was hired with the mandate to develop RG3. After four starts, Gruden decided that wasn’t going to work. Now—if the rumors are true—he’s apparently decided that a third-round pick in Cousins can’t work, and that another former first-rounder, in McCoy can’t work either.
This quarterback carousel simply has to stop. Bad teams and bad organizations—and my beloved Washington Redskins are most definitely both—have a tendency to go for quick fixes, which means either change the head coach or change the quarterback. In reality, the Redskins problems are much deeper. To watch the Redskins is to see a team that looks undisciplined and lacks cohesion. They pile up penalties on special teams, consistently creating field position problems. They don’t make tackles in the open field. They commit false starts in the red zone. These problems all pre-date Gruden and he did not create them. After three-quarters of a season, it’s also apparent he hasn’t been able to fix them.
When RG3 was a rookie, his skills were transcendent enough to overcome all that. Since his ACL tear at the end of that year, the subsequent ankle dislocation this year and general loss of confidence and identity, those flaws in the rest of the team are on full display.
Fixing these basic problems has to be the priority for this organization. Any discussion of new personnel needs to focus on the offensive line and the secondary. The focus of the coaching staff needs to be making sure the next edition of the Redskins looks more like a disciplined football team and less like chaos on display.
It’s a cop-out for Gruden or anyone else to go around demanding a new quarterback, at least for now. If the head coach fixes the problems mentioned, gets this team to 8-8, and nothing resolves itself at quarterback, then maybe he can have a new toy at the QB position. Right now, he needs to eat his vegetables first and build the defense, the offensive line and the general team discipline.
There’s a myth that you can’t win in the NFL without a really good quarterback. The people at ProFootballFocus.com watch film and grade every player at every position. The grade of RG3—a poor one—still exceeds that of Brian Hoyer in Cleveland and Matthew Stafford in Detroit. Those teams are a combined 15-9, and that’s with Hoyer possibly now losing his job to Johnny Manziel. The reason? Both of those teams play defense.
So it’s time for Jay Gruden to live up to his reputation, or at least a small part of it. I don’t care who he starts, be it RG3, Colt, or Cousins. I don’t care if it’s some combination of the three. Heck, I don’t care if he wants to use them as the shuttle to bring in plays from the sidelines. What I want to see is him figure out to make it work. And by “work”, I just mean win as many as you lose. Not even make the playoffs. Those aren’t exactly high expectations.
The message “make it work with what you have” applies to those of us who are critics of the head coach as well. This was a hire that I hated from the moment it was made, and there’s a big part of me that just wants to cut the cord after one year. But that isn’t going to be the answer either. The tone needs to be set throughout this organization and fan base—at least for 2015, Jay Gruden is our coach, and RG3/Colt/Cousins are the quarterbacks. And within that framework we have to win eight games by fixing the aspects of a football team that don’t get the headlines.
All of us who are fans of the Washington Redskins, and also love Robert Griffin III, can see the reality of the situation. RG3 simply looks like a young man lost. He’s not using his legs to any kind of positive effect, and after a career that has two ACL tears and a dislocated ankle, it’s not hard to figure out why. If the Redskins truly had to win a football game right now, there would be no good argument for starting anyone other than Colt McCoy.
My question is this—whenever this change comes, is it asking too much that Jay Gruden not act like the back end of a horse when dealing with RG3? So far, the head coach is failing that test.
I don’t fault Gruden for calling out RG3 a week ago at his press conference for Griffin’s comments about his teammates. While the overall context of RG3’s remarks—backed up by reporters who were there—is that Griffin didn’t mean them as badly as they came off, the fact is the comments were incredibly poorly worded. And, at least in the loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, RG3 had performed vastly worse than his teammates.
But even in delivering this rebuke, Gruden went too far. His opening rebuttal—that the quarterback needs to worry about himself and the head coach would worry about everyone else—was on target. Then Gruden started going into a laundry list of everything else RG3 was doing wrong. This was going too far, and even the head coach knew it, walking back his comments later in the week.
Then, prior to Sunday’s game in San Francisco, Gruden again decided to go after his quarterback. The coach said “He’s auditioned long enough…the clock’s ticking.” This was simply ridiculous. We could start by pointing out that RG3 had played only three full games when the comment was made. We could further point out that RG3 was actually Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2012—it’s not as though he’s completely unaccomplished in the NFL. Like, for example, the current Washington Redskins head coach. And the comment came off like Gruden was deciding to pile on.
What the issue really is though, is this—Robert Griffin III is not a “bust”, in the sense that Ryan Leaf was a bust, or Sam Bradford has been a bust. Robert Griffin III got hurt. Before that happened, he was easily the best quarterback in the rookie class of 2012, lifting a moribund franchise to a division title and having the Seattle Seahawks in a 14-0 hole in the playoffs before he finally took the injury from which he has yet to recover. Getting hurt is a big disappointment, but it doesn’t make you a bust.
Moreover, Griffin’s injury was aggravated by the decision of the Redskins—or at least their then-head coach Mike Shanahan, to leave him in the playoff game when an entire nation watching on television could see he was hurt. If this were another industry, Shanahan would be on the hook for culpable negligence. If an organization’s personnel is responsible for a player’s current problems, is it too much to ask they at least not publicly humiliate the player as the pretext for making a change?
Finally, Gruden is the one who has declined to use Griffin’s full range of skills in his offensive game-planning. In yesterday’s game I counted only four players where Griffin was put on the move—not even running, but just rolling out. Everything else was a vanilla dropback route. Even McCoy, in his great Monday Night start in Dallas last month, was allowed to run the read-option and roll out. Why not Griffin?
What everything smacks of—from the public beatdowns to the deliberate refusal to use the quarterback’s full range of talents—is that Gruden has essentially mailed it in on RG3.
RG3 has looked to me, in all his starts, as a quarterback who has lost his confidence and even lost his identity, unsure in the pocket about whether he should run or hold on to the ball. He admitted as much, saying over a week ago that he often feels “at war with myself.” That’s not exactly a good recipe for success in the NFL.
It’s for those reasons that I think RG3 is just in a very bad mental rut that won’t disappear anytime soon and that you have to go with McCoy if you’re serious about winning on Sunday. If the organization wants to give Griffin the rest of the season to try and right himself, I understand that decision. But if that’s the case, then really let him play.
And whatever happens, if the time comes to go with McCoy (which I believe it will) or even to cut ties with RG3 entirely (as I believe might be necessary for both sides), I’m going to repeat my question—is it asking too much that the head coach not behave boorishly in doing it. Let RG3 rebuild his career, either in Washington or elsewhere, but don’t ever forget how hard he competed, or that it was an avoidable injury that did him in.
All of us who are fans of the Washington Redskins, and also love Robert Griffin III, can see the reality of the situation. RG3 simply looks like a young man lost. He’s not using his legs to any kind of positive effect, and after a career that has two ACL tears and a dislocated ankle, it’s not hard to figure out why. If the Redskins truly had to win a football game right now, there would be no good argument for starting anyone other than Colt McCoy.
My question is this—whenever this change comes, is it asking too much that Jay Gruden not act like the back end of a horse when dealing with RG3? So far, the head coach is failing that test.
I don’t fault Gruden for calling out RG3 a week ago at his press conference for Griffin’s comments about his teammates. While the overall context of RG3’s remarks—backed up by reporters who were there—is that Griffin didn’t mean them as badly as they came off, the fact is the comments were incredibly poorly worded. And, at least in the loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, RG3 had performed vastly worse than his teammates. But even in delivering this rebuke, Gruden went too far. His opening rebuttal—that the quarterback needs to worry about himself and the head coach would worry about everyone else—was on target. Then Gruden started going into a laundry list of everything else RG3 was doing wrong. This was going too far, and even the head coach knew it, walking back his comments later in the week.
Then, prior to Sunday’s game in San Francisco, Gruden again decided to go after his quarterback. The coach said “He’s auditioned long enough…the clock’s ticking.” This was simply ridiculous. We could start by pointing out that RG3 had played only three full games when the comment was made. We could further point out that RG3 was actually Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2012—it’s not as though he’s completely unaccomplished in the NFL. Like, for example, the current Washington Redskins head coach. And the comment came off like Gruden was deciding to pile on.
What the issue really is though, is this—Robert Griffin III is not a “bust”, in the sense that Ryan Leaf was a bust, or Sam Bradford has been a bust. Robert Griffin III got hurt. Before that happened, he was easily the best quarterback in the rookie class of 2012, lifting a moribund franchise to a division title and having the Seattle Seahawks in a 14-0 hole in the playoffs before he finally took the injury from which he has yet to recover. Getting hurt is a big disappointment, but it doesn’t make you a bust.
Moreover, Griffin’s injury was aggravated by the decision of the Redskins—or at least their then-head coach Mike Shanahan, to leave him in the playoff game when an entire nation watching on television could see he was hurt. If this were another industry, Shanahan would be on the hook for culpable negligence. If an organization’s personnel is responsible for a player’s current problems, is it too much to ask they at least not publicly humiliate the player as the pretext for making a change?
Finally, Gruden is the one who has declined to use Griffin’s full range of skills in his offensive game-planning. In yesterday’s game I counted only four players where Griffin was put on the move—not even running, but just rolling out. Everything else was a vanilla dropback route. Even McCoy, in his great Monday Night start in Dallas last month, was allowed to run the read-option and roll out. Why not Griffin?
What everything smacks of—from the public beatdowns to the deliberate refusal to use the quarterback’s full range of talents—is that Gruden has essentially mailed it in on RG3.
RG3 has looked to me, in all his starts, as a quarterback who has lost his confidence and even lost his identity, unsure in the pocket about whether he should run or hold on to the ball. He admitted as much, saying over a week ago that he often feels “at war with myself.” That’s not exactly a good recipe for success in the NFL.
It’s for those reasons that I think RG3 is just in a very bad mental rut that won’t disappear anytime soon and that you have to go with McCoy if you’re serious about winning on Sunday. If the organization wants to give Griffin the rest of the season to try and right himself, I understand that decision. But if that’s the case, then really let him play.
And whatever happens, if the time comes to go with McCoy (which I believe it will) or even to cut ties with RG3 entirely (as I believe might be necessary for both sides), I’m going to repeat my question—is it asking too much that the head coach not behave boorishly in doing it. Let RG3 rebuild his career, either in Washington or elsewhere, but don’t ever forget how hard he competed, or that it was an avoidable injury that did him in.
It’s time to drop the race card on the table when it comes to the constant drama surrounding Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III, and moreover it’s time to deal that card from two different decks.
Now that RG3 is back in the Redskin lineup, he’s again facing the latest round of all-out character attacks. Some media reports say those are from within the locker room, and others dispute that, but there’s no question that the Redskins quarterback is under fire for a lot more than just his play. He’s been called a diva, a prima donna, and worse. And I have a hard time separating race from this constant barrage.
But unlike a lot of circumstances, the racial issue comes from both sides in this drama. I’m going to stress in advance that these deal with attacks on RG3’s character, not his play on the field, which is fair game. Here’s a summation of the landscape…
*RG3 is viewed by some in the African-American community as “not black enough.” One need only recall an infamous ESPN commentary in 2012, when African-American “analyst” Rob Parker called Griffin a “cornball brother”, for marrying a white woman and for unconfirmed rumors of voting Republican. Parker wondered if RG3 was “down with the cause.” Parker was fired, but it makes one wonder how extensively his opinions are shared, particularly by RG3’s African-American teammates. The silence of white liberals was a reminder of how much they rely on African-Americans being emotionally bullied into supporting their causes and candidates.
*On the flip side, let’s consider this. Robert Griffin III is the son of military parents and from a strong family background. He’s never been in a whiff of trouble. He helped turn a struggling college program (Baylor) into a burgeoning powerhouse and…well, there are unconfirmed rumors that he votes Republican. Are you going to tell me that if he were a clean-cut white guy instead of an African-American with braids, that white conservatives wouldn’t be all over him? Fox News might give him his own show. But instead, there’s no support. As one, who’s mostly identified and voted with conservatives since turning 18 in 1988, this is one more cause of my increasing estrangement from the modern Right.
When an NFL quarterback’s team is winning games, none of this matters. But the Washington Redskins are not winning games—as a lifelong fan of the team, I have all the emotional battle scars of a 6-19 record over the last season and a half. And when things go wrong, you need a natural base of support to fall back on. Robert Griffin III does not have one—at least not among organized media and social activists.
I contend that this young man is being whipsawed by both sides of the racial divide in the United States, and it’s the real reason for both the sustained character assault he’s undergone, and the lack of any real support coming to his defense.
What other reason could there be? Let’s run through the litany of alternate explanations and I’ll explain why I’m not persuaded…
*The Redskins have lost 19 of their last 25 games, most of which have been with RG3 at quarterback. Yes, and I don’t consider criticisms about his game to be about race. I don’t necessarily agree with them—the ‘Skins play little defense and less special teams. But I get that it comes with the territory in being an NFL quarterback. But Robert Griffin III has been attacked with a ferocity that goes well beyond on-field performance. He’s had his character emasculated. And that doesn’t go with the territory.
*He clashed with his first head coach, Mike Shanahan. Yes he did. As mentioned, Griffin had no track record of getting in trouble with authority and came from a background that would presumably place great value on respect for leadership. Shanahan’s past track record included being unable to get along with John Elway when he was in Denver, to the point that Elway refused to return to the organization until Shanahan left. However things went down between Shanahan and RG3, their respective backgrounds suggest it’s the quarterback, not the coach, who deserves the benefit of the doubt.
*RG3 does a lot of commercials. He indisputably does. Everything from Adidas to Subway to being on with his parents in support of the military. But it’s not as though he’s kissing his bicep like Colin Kapernick of the 49ers. These ads RG3 does are all benign and non-controversial. The most audacious one was “All In For Week One” in the summer of 2013. So, his most bombastic ad was a vow to recover from an ACL tear and play the first game of the season? It might not be medically prudent, but there’s no way it explains the vitriol that poured out.
*His teammates don’t like him. We have to begin by first pointing out that we really don’t know that. And even if we do, the same questions need to be asked—why? If it’s for any of the reasons above, then the same answers apply. I also need to know exactly who doesn’t like him. Let’s keep in mind, this isn’t exactly the New England Patriots locker room that RG3 walked into. The Redskin locker room is filled with players whom I wouldn’t miss if they were cut tomorrow. Their on-field performance has been terrible, and there’s only a handful I would consider credible on any subject of leadership (Ryan Clark, Santana Moss, Trent Williams). In short, I need to know specifics—who hates RG3 and why? No one seems to want to step forward. Maybe they don’t exist.
That’s all I can think of. If there’s something I missing, I’m happy to consider it. But right now, I would sum this up with three simple propositions…
Robert Griffin III is being subjected to a character assault well beyond the scope of standard criticism for a quarterback.
Most reasons put forth don’t hold water when put up to the light of scrutiny.
The one that’s left is that he’s right in the middle of the racial divide in the United States—a place that invites vitriol.
SIGN UP FOR THE FREE NEWSLETTER OF THESPORTSNOTEBOOK
ANALYSIS & HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE FROM AROUND THE SPORTS WORLD
