Jay Gruden is not about to bow down to Robert Griffin III the way ownership and the front office of the Washington Redskins did following the franchise quarterback’s rookie season.
Gruden and RG3 have been going back and forth ever since the third-year quarterback played poorly in a loss to the Buccaneers and ascribed blame to everyone for the defeat. In an interview with NFL Media’s Albert Breer, Gruden provided an honest assessment of the former Heisman Trophy winner.
“Since the preseason, in the games that he’s played, our production from an offensive standpoint has been awful. I think five touchdowns in all the drives he’s played, for whatever reason, and that’s not good,” Gruden told Breer. “We’re still trying to figure that out.”
Gruden then focused on how Griffin has not had to deal with adversity until now, and how the quarterback is not handling it well.
“His biggest thing, he’s been coddled for so long. It’s not a negative, he’s just been so good, he just hasn’t had a lot of negative publicity,” Gruden said. “Everybody’s loved him. Some adversity is striking hard at him now, and how he reacts to that off the field, his mental state of mind, how it affects his confidence, hopefully it’s not in a negative way.”
As if it weren’t already clear enough that Gruden is challenging Griffin and not a believer yet, the first-year head coach said it was put up or shut up time for Griffin.
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“He’s auditioned long enough,” Gruden said to Breer. “Clock’s ticking. He’s gotta play. We’ll see. … We want Robert to excel, we really do. But the last two games, it hasn’t been very good, anywhere. We gotta play better around him. And the biggest thing for us as play-callers, and for him, we just have to come together and jell with plays he’s comfortable with. That takes time. But we don’t have a lot of time.”
Reading these comments makes me think that report about Washington’s ownership and GM wanted Gruden to start Griffin at quarterback even though Colt McCoy had won two games in a row. It’s pretty obvious that Gruden is dissatisfied with Griffin and wants to see some big improvements. He seems so dissatisfied that you have to wonder whether he would even want to enter next season with RG3 as his quarterback.
