Robert Griffin III and Mike Shanahan did not get along for very long when the two were with the Washington Redskins, and a lot of that had to do with team owner Daniel Snyder empowering and enabling his No. 2 overall draft pick.
Jason Reid, who covered the Redskins for the Washington Post when RG3 was still there, wrote a lengthy piece for The Undefeated chronicling the downfall of Griffin in the nation’s capital. Reid provided a closer look at RG3’s relationship with Shanahan and described the former Baylor star as someone who “overindulged in social media, alienated teammates” and spent too much time “enhancing the cult of RG3.”
While speaking to Reid, Shanahan elaborated on a story he told more than a year ago about Griffin confronting the coach about “unacceptable” plays after RG3’s rookie season. If that sounded arrogant, you’ll really enjoy the detail Shanahan added this time.
Griffin called for a meeting. He declined to tell Mike Shanahan what he wanted to discuss, saying only it was important. Griffin, Mike and Kyle Shanahan and quarterbacks coach Matt LaFleur gathered in the offensive meeting room at the team headquarters in Ashburn, Virginia. With the coaches seated, Griffin walked to a blackboard and wrote:
1. Change things.
2. Change our protections.
3. Unacceptable.
4. Bottom line.Griffin instructed the coaches to let him speak uninterrupted and rolled through a list of grievances, stressing that substantive changes had to occur immediately. Scrap the pass protection scheme and start over, Griffin demanded. There were 19 plays — primarily those from the 50-series and quarterback draws — that were unacceptable. Griffin, who supported his presentation with video clips of each play, expected them to be deleted from the playbook. Bottom line, Griffin said, he was a drop-back quarterback — not a running quarterback.
Shanahan also reiterated that he knew the message came directly from Snyder.
“When Robert is standing there going through all of that, I know it’s coming from Dan,” Shanahan said. “When Robert talked about ‘unacceptable,’ that was a word Dan used all the time. He was using phrases Dan used all the time. There’s only one way a guy who’s going into his second year would do something like this: If he sat down with the owner and the owner believed that this is the way he should be used.”
Shanahan was unhappy from the beginning about the Redskins trading several draft picks to get Griffin. He said he told Snyder that he saw nothing on RG3’s tape that warranted giving up that type of haul, but he assured his boss he would make it work. It did work, but only for a season.
Reid noted that Shanahan and the other Redskins coaches noticed “major flaws” in RG3’s passing mechanics right away and that Shanahan could tell he was not a drop-back QB. Griffin also never showed a willingness to protect himself by sliding or throwing the ball away.
The entire piece is worth reading, as it provides prospective from not only Shanahan but also people like Donovan McNabb, who tried to reach out to RG3 and help him but was essentially ignored. Remember, the issues with Griffin only worsened after Shanahan left, and this report is another example of that.
Will things be different for Hue Jackson and the Cleveland Browns? Reid doesn’t seem to think so, but only time will tell.
H/T The Big Lead
