Jon Gruden was more critical of Colt McCoy during the Monday night football game between the Cowboys and Redskins than he is of nearly all quarterbacks, prompting many to wonder whether the announcer was trying to protect his brother Jay, who is Washington’s head coach.
Many have questioned how credible Jon could be as an analyst broadcasting his brother’s games. I always dismissed that notion because I believed Gruden was professional, but it really felt like he was picking out every single thing McCoy did wrong in order to give an excuse for his brother in case the Redskins lost.
Gruden’s criticism of McCoy was not noticeable in the first half of the game, but that changed in the second half. After Lisa Salters reported prior to the start of the third quarter that Jay Gruden expressed disappointment with the way McCoy played in the first half, Jon acted like that meant open season for picking on McCoy.
Gruden just hammered McCoy throughout the Redskins’ first drive of the second half.
On Washington’s first play of the second half, McCoy tripped while trying to make a handoff.
“Everything just looks so hard. The ball-handling, the timing. … handing the ball off, executing simple play-action passes have been difficult for McCoy,” said Gruden, providing more grating criticism than usual.
Gruden did praise McCoy for switching to a run play on second down, but he was critical after a couple of McCoy completions.
After Colt completed a pass to DeSean Jackson on a slant, Gruden pointed out what was wrong with the throw.
“If you give him a better throw, he might score,” Gruden said.
Then after a completion by McCoy on 2nd-and-7 made it 1st-and-goal, Gruden had another complaint.
“Again, low throw forces (Pierre) Garcon to go down and get it and eliminates yards after the catch. Let’s see if McCoy can get out of the huddle clean. They’ve had a lot of problems communicating the plays with McCoy early in this half.”
Gruden’s points were accurate, it was just odd to hear him pick out those little things when he’s typically so complimentary of quarterbacks.
The Redskins scored on the next play to make it 17-10. Gruden immediately praised his brother’s staff while leaving out McCoy.
“Impressive job by the Redskins’ coaching staff at halftime,” Gruden said in summation of the drive.
The Redskins went three-and-out on their next drive, but Jon Gruden kicked the criticism back up on the team’s third drive of the half.
“Let’s see if Colt McCoy can communicate clearly in the huddle. The Redskins have had some problems with their third-string quarterback getting everybody on the same page,” he said.
Gruden surprisingly gave McCoy credit on a 3rd-and-six pass for a first down.
“Nice work by Colt McCoy sliding in the pocket.”
But after McCoy completed a long bomb to DeSean Jackson to set up a go-ahead touchdown, Gruden’s first action was to praise his brother (again).
“How bout that throw? Colt McCoy – he listened to Jay Gruden at halftime he says ‘I’ll cut it loose.’ That’s on the money!”
You would think Gruden would have really praised McCoy for the deep throw to Jackson, but instead he found a way to pump up his brother.
Then when McCoy scored on a quarterback draw, Gruden once again praised the Redskins’ coaches before praising McCoy.
“Oh my, what a call on 3rd-and-goal from the 6. … Colt McCoy sells out in his home state. That’s impressive by Colt McCoy!”
A bit later on in the game, on a 2nd and 8 with 6:40 left, Gruden was critical again.
“That’s where we’d like to see Colt McCoy reset and go to his checkdown.”
Gruden did say some nice things about McCoy returning to his home state and winning, but the overall tone of his commentary was extremely negative towards Washington’s third-stringer.
The issue is not that Gruden’s criticism of McCoy was wrong; all his points were valid. The issue is that Gruden is usually more positive in his commentary and rarely picks on players as consistently as he did with Colt. Whether it was intentional or not, Gruden’s commentary gave credit to the coaches when things went right and placed blame on McCoy when they went wrong. That just does not happen with Gruden when he calls other games, and it made it seem like he was protecting his brother.
