If you think Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden is going to throw all of his support behind Robert Griffin III no matter how poorly the franchise quarterback plays, think again.
During his scheduled press conference on Monday, Gruden was highly critical of Griffin. According to Mike Jones of the Washington Post, Gruden said that RG3 needs to “worry about himself,” among other things. Here are some of the highlights.
Gruden: "Robert needs to worry about himself…. I'll worry about everybody else. … He elaborated too much"
— Mike Jones (@MikeJonesWaPo) November 17, 2014
Gruden: Griffin "had some fundamental flaws…From his basic performance, critiquing Robert, it was not even close" to where it needs to be"
— Mike Jones (@MikeJonesWaPo) November 17, 2014
Gruden on Griffin's aspirations: "some times you don't need great. You don't need elite on every play."
— Mike Jones (@MikeJonesWaPo) November 17, 2014
Gruden: RGIII overthrows: "those were big plays…Big difference in the game: Josh McCown hit his 3 w Mike Evans. We missed DeSean 3 times"
— Mike Jones (@MikeJonesWaPo) November 17, 2014
Where do we start? In saying that Griffin needs to worry about himself, Gruden was obviously referring to RG3’s postgame remarks about everyone playing poorly. Although, there’s really no reason for Gruden to be upset about those comments unless he watched NBC’s condensed version of them.
But that wasn’t even the most damning part of the press conference. The fact that Gruden compared Griffin to Josh McCown is downright embarrassing. Gruden also said that RG3 displayed poor footwork and “read the wrong side of the field” on multiple occasions. That’s usually criticism a coach would share with his quarterback behind closed doors.
I know RG3 has played poorly, but I can’t see how Gruden’s public criticism will help the team. As a quarterback, part of Griffin’s job is to be a leader and worry about his teammates. Gruden’s message was basically that RG3 has played so poorly that he should stop doing that.
Remember that report about Gruden feeling that Kirk Cousins was a better fit for his offense that RG3? You’d have to try really hard to convince me that there was no truth to that.
