PFT: Gruden says the “clock’s ticking” on Griffin

[Primus Porcus]

Yeah but it 100% unprofessional to call out a player unless you intend to get rid of him. This team has no heart, no discipline, and no clue. That is a direct reflection of the HC....

I hope all this turns around but I just dont see it happening

Agreed, and maybe Gruden intends on getting rid Griffin. I've reached a point where I'm going to try to find a way to support whatever move the powers that be in Ashburn make until they're proven wrong. I am quilty of wearing homer glassed, I understand that, but this constant rotation of instability is getting exhausting for all of us. I am with you, I don't agree with the public drumming at the hands of Gruden, but I also haven't like the way the team has performed not just recently but for a long time now. With an ever changing league, the game evolving, and the NFL fan being given more access to players then ever before, I am going to look at a fighting fire w/ fire situation here. Is it what i want? Nope... but what would i prefer? A winning franchise. How they get there? Its anyones guess, if we know how to do it we wouldnt be sitting here talking about it.

 

[Fear The Spear]

I guess now we know exactly what Santana was talking about, after Gruden was hired, and everyone but him was excited.
Since it was like Santana's 50th coach in his Redskin career, he was quoted saying,
"“When it’s new, everything is all good. It’s just like getting that new girlfriend. You had the old one and she got on your nerves. The new one ain’t gonna get on your nerves until down the road."

 

[Kel Varnsen]

I guess where I differ with some is that I didn't interpret Griffin's post-game comments last week as blaming others. I thought he took ownership of his own poor play, and was only saying that the whole team needs to get better. He is not always 'artful' with his comments, but I honestly don't think he was trying to deflect ownership or throw others under the bus. Maybe I'm being too generous with that assessment - I don't know. And again, the head coach and players aren't 'equals'. I fairly expect that the head coach lead by example, whether players are doing so or not.

I thought the same thing with his comments after the game. When you look at his comments in total, there is nothing wrong with what he said. He said several times that it starts with him playing better. As you said, he doesn't always find the best way to say it. And he also gives little bites in there that make for great headlines and story lines. Maybe we are naïve, but when I see a whole team that sucks, I say the whole team sucks. It starts with the QB, but everyone has to do better.

 

[fansince62]

Who says? He was brought in to win football games! Yeah, part of that is to help Robert, "elevate" the team, but he is the coach of a football team, not the QB coach. You're minimizing Gruden's role.

I love how you call Gruden and amateur in over his head, but are convinced Robert Griffin with a worse resume at his job, is the answer to this team.

Gruden is an amateur. his team is 3-8. he sucks as a head coach. he didn't have the balls to select his own staff. now he's getting "tough" cuz the ship is sinking? by the way...anyone ever notice that...at the end of the day.....Gruden's boy Dalton couldn't win a high viz game if his life depended upon it?

I didn't say Griffin is the answer. I said if he doesn't succeed the Skins are screwed cuz they have no QB option worth a crap and drafting is low probability with a rewind to development phase 1. Gruden is screwed!!!!

looks like this team is screwed either way for at least the next 5 years. IMO...Gruden is done and gone w/i 2 years. no one is interested in watching a 3 to 7 win season year after year.

 

[servumtuum]

I have been thinking over the stuff I've been reading here and have a couple of personal observations to make.

Note: These are strictly my opinion based on inferences I have made from watching this situation unfold and are not to be taken as statements of "absolute fact".

1.) On Robert and social media-most people are "bothered" by the fact that he post a lot on social media but what has been gnawing at me is what he posts. His FB posts and tweets look like memorized quotes from a PowerPoint preentation done at a conference of motivational speakers-inspirational, self-empowering affirmations designed to build confidence or, and I see this especially, a type of self-reassurance seeking to quell self-doubt and lack of confidence. In my opinion Robert demoralizes easily and uses this as means of restoring a level of confidence. It also, and I think this shows up in the nature of some of his statements indicates a difficulty with personal accountability-accountability can conflict with self-confidence if the self-confidence is maintained artificially through reciting a verbal mantra of affirmations. Failure cast as individual versus team as a whole would contravene the intended effect of the "motivational exercises." in this case. High-performance, high-confidence, high-expectations most of his life have led to a situation where what some see as "throwing the team under the bus" I see as using those same "motivationl quotes" techniques to try to learn the nuancing between "My effort/my responsibility/my failure/my success" and "team effort/team responsibility/team failure/team success". IMO, this nuancing has not been entirely successful. The Shanahan episode and physical impairment already present exacerbated the whole coach player dysfunction to the extent that his play and the team suffered and continues to do so under a new coach with a more-shall we say "aggresive" way of doing things. This is not an attempt to exonerate or relieve Robert of any responsibility to get his act together ASAP before he screws his potential career big time but just my attempt at an explanation of some of his more "irritating" behavior.


2.) Jay Gruden-before I make a judgement about what he has done in the past few days online and in press conferences I have to say that when Jay arrived I was attracted to his football knowledge and acumen and no-nonsense attitude. To a certain extent I still am. I think the caveats of his being a first time NFL head coach and being that first time head coach in the most soap-opera-ridden franchise in the NFL cannot be ignored. Any expectations I have had and do have about Gruden are always tempered by these-not to do so is, IMO, denying reality. Having said that, however, I don't think his handling of this situation was the best available. Perhaps it's his "feisty" attitude everyone including myself seems to enjoy but airing publicly concerns that, IMO, should be kept behind closed doors was a counter-productive move. Granted he doesn't know D.C. sports media nor, it seems, does he realize how negative statements go viral online several orders of magnitude faster than anything else and now have a huge audience more than willing to pick them to pieces. We all saw the infamous profanity-filled locker room vid that we either secretly or openly got thrilled by-this may just another component of tht operating. At any rate, tactically this was , again IMO, a blunder on Gruden's part.


3.)The Redskins FO and HC soap opera has been an ongoing feature(?) of this franchise for quite a while now and this could just be the latest iteration with new characters. If Jay G. is indeed marking territory to counter a pereived attempt at FO control-or micro-management, if you will-then I'll just settle for another episode of "All My Redskins". I am giving him the rest of the season and the draft and free agency afterward before I come to any general conclusions about him as a HC.


One more thing, my judgement on Gruden's coaching acumen and actual power within the organization is also dependent upon whether or not Jim Haslett is the DC at the beginning of the 2015 season.

 

[Cycleans]

Griffin was horrible...no progress whatsoever. He's playing worse than a rookie...Time to cut bait

 

[Goaldeje]

So, Griffin was not good today. At all. He was bad. So can someone tell me what the point of Gruden's little tirade was? Did it fix anything? Help anything at all? I sure as shit hope it made Gruden feel better, because that's about the only upside I can see...

 

[Bulldog]

The clock is ticking?

Heck, I think the alarm just went off.

 

[Primus Porcus]

Gruden isn't pinning the loss on him in his presser. He's making excuses about Moses, but that's about it.

He referenced a rookie starting at LT on the road being a contributor but he also referenced the protection as a whole multiple times. He also said that he needed to work on the offense as a whole as well as the playcalling... i didnt see any pitchforks at all.

 

[Elephant]

Look, the reality is, Griffin did not have a good game. He did not have a bad game either. The play action worked well a few times. Gruden called a few plays to utilize Griffin's run ability that worked, but he called a few plays that were poor too.

Overall, this was not as bad as some will want to make it out, nor was it as good as others will try to suggest. There was good and bad on both sides of the coin. Bottom line is I am right back where I was at the beginning of the year...no expectations. Think about this for a second, the 49ers are perennial contenders, we were one missed tackle on the 4th and short by Brandon Meriweather away from winning the game today.

 

[SkinsFTW]

Look, the reality is, Griffin did not have a good game. He did not have a bad game either.

 

[SkinsFTW]

So, Griffin was not good today. At all. He was bad. So can someone tell me what the point of Gruden's little tirade was? Did it fix anything? Help anything at all? I sure as shit hope it made Gruden feel better, because that's about the only upside I can see...

Instead of mailing in the season after RG3 tried to deflect his hideous performance on them, you didn't notice that the rest of the team played their asses off for their coach?

 

[Gulf Coast Redskin]

But Brian, obviously Gruden is the Head Coach of this franchise. He has to hold himself accountable above all else, and the way he carries himself has to be above rebuke and set the example for the team. I don't know if I buy half of what is being said about Griffin, but he is a 24 year old still learning, and I still believe he can be influenced in a positive way by his coaches. I hope this 'tough love' (I think it's more unprofessional and selfish than 'tough', but that's me) works because if it doesn't, we'll never know if a better coach couldn't have salvaged Griffin's career.

Or maybe we will, after we trade him. I am truly stunned that we are going to give up on a 24 year old former Heisman winner, who helped win us the division 2 years ago, without more than a handful of games to try to get it right. But that appears to be the direction this head coach wants to go.

I'm starting to wish we had not signed him to a long-term contract.

This.

After watching today's game, seeing Robert on the bench during defensive stands by himself not talking to anyone & seemingly very dejected & apathetic, I'm leaning towards Gruden's words doing more damage than good. I think he totally broke Robert's spirit this week & his time with us is done. I think what Robert said after last week's game was exactly what the leader of the team should have said. And I think Gruden's response to that since then has destroyed the trust between him & Robert & possibly set him back.

At this point, I say we trade Robert. We don't deserve him. He's a good kid with an amazing talent & the people we have had running this team into the ground are ruining him. And as a humanitarian, I would hate to see his career flushed down the toilet because the Redskins destroyed yet another QB because they refuse to address the real issues here, the OLine. I think Robert will still be a successful QB in this league, but not here. Sad, because we have seen countless QBs come thru here because there is this "need" for the star QB, yet they never seem to want to do what everyone KNOWS they should start putting in place the guys who can protect even the average QB. Oh well. Round & round & round we go. Where it stops, nobody knows.

 

[Elephant]

Laugh all you want, but he did not make drastic mistakes that lost us the game like he did against the Vikings last week. We could have won this game had he played better, but we didn't lose because he was so bad. We win this game with 2 plays on defense that were close.

Now, if you want to say he looked terrible on that last drive with the game on the line, I will agree. In the same breath, you have to accept he did some good things on a couple of scoring drives.

 

[Bulldog]

I think some folks here have a warped sense of history. There is a perception that Joe Theismann and other quarterbacks under Joe Gibbs never got sacked or faced any pressure because of the OL.

That's not true. The Redskins won a number of big games with Theismann getting sacked and knocked around quite a bit.

People forget that in the Cowboys' conference game in 1983 Theismann got sacked 4 times by the Dallas front four despite the Redskins going on to win.

Anyone remember games against Chicago in 1986 and 1987? 49ers in 1986? Giants in 1985 and 1986?

The point is the Redskins were able to win 10 plus games in those seasons and the quarterbacks were not across the board afforded great protection when facing other elite teams in the NFC.

We have to get away from giving an alibi each week for a failure to execute and be productive.

One week it is the line. Another week it is receivers dropping the ball. A third week it is a tepid running game that allowed teams to tee off on Griffin.

The fact is though that Griffin is 0-4 as a starter this season.

All 3 of the team's wins came with other quarterbacks at the helm, whether they were themselves long terms answers or not.

What made Cousins successful against the woeful Jacksonville Jaguars while Griffin was downright horrible against an equally bad Tampa Bay club?

 

[Gulf Coast Redskin]

Instead of mailing in the season after RG3 tried to deflect his hideous performance on them, you didn't notice that the rest of the team played their asses off for their coach?

I gotta say, nope. I saw no difference in anyone. The OLine is still as piss poor as they have been for years. The only bright spot on offense, as usual is Morris. On defense, I saw a bit of fire in the new kid who replaced Porter & got an INT on his 2nd play of his career. Trent Murphy played well & I think he improves week in & week out. I think, defensively, Kerrigan on one end & Murphy on the other is starting to look better & better. But honestly, I saw no difference. Doing my counts (1 1000, 2 1000), I would barely get that 2nd "1000" out before Robert was in the grass again. So, no. I saw no difference.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

After watching today's game, seeing Robert on the bench during defensive stands by himself not talking to anyone & seemingly very dejected & apathetic, I'm leaning towards Gruden's words doing more damage than good.

Huh? I only remember Griffin by himself one time, and that was during the very last defensive series. Every other time the defense was on the field, he was sitting next to McVay with McCoy on the other side and Cousins standing nearby. They should about a dozen similar shots like that during the game.

 

[Gulf Coast Redskin]

Laugh all you want, but he did not make drastic mistakes that lost us the game like he did against the Vikings last week. We could have won this game had he played better, but we didn't lose because he was so bad. We win this game with 2 plays on defense that were close.

Now, if you want to say he looked terrible on that last drive with the game on the line, I will agree. In the same breath, you have to accept he did some good things on a couple of scoring drives.

Umm, he actually did pretty good against the Vikings. It was the Bucs last week.

 

[GSF]

Look, the reality is, Griffin did not have a good game. He did not have a bad game either.

Uhh, what reality are you living in? Griffin looked horrible. The Redskins would have won that game with a half decent game manager in there playing QB. Griffin should be benched.

 

[Gulf Coast Redskin]

Huh? I only remember Griffin by himself one time, and that was during the very last defensive series. Every other time the defense was on the field, he was sitting next to McVay with McCoy on the other side and Cousins standing nearby. They should about a dozen similar shots like that during the game.

Seemed to me he was sitting by himself a lot more than that. Even if he was sitting with those other guys, how often did you see him talking to the other players on the field when they were on the sideline? How often did he have a smile on his face? Did he look to you like he even wanted to be there? Because he didn't to me.