Jay Gruden Brings A Refreshing Attitude To The Washington Redskins

The Washington Redskins new Head Football Coach Jay Gruden nailed his introductory press conference Thursday. He was confident, but not arrogant. He was also candid, but with a sense of humor.

“Well, I don’t know what happened last year,” Gruden said. “I know that interviewing with Dan Snyder and Bruce Allen and everybody here that the passion for excellence is there. All they want do is win and they’re going to provide me with every avenue to win. I don’t know what happened last year and I don’t care what happened last year. All I care about next year is moving forward. I am going to provide the players with every avenue, like I said, for them to succeed and be great. So moving forward, we’re going to forget about the past and look forward to the future every day.”

I’m a strong believer in that a team absorbs the personality of their Head Coach. It was obvious last season with Mike Shanahan — players were not holding themselves accountable and the focus was more on PR than football. Jay Gruden is genuinely a guy who will be candid with players. Mike Shanahan, from what I heard, wasn’t that way. That’s an important trait because players need to know exactly what to expect and what’s expected of them. There will be no gray area with Jay Gruden.

“There’s a lot you want to accomplish, but I want a sense of confidence instilled in the players right away,” Gruden said. “I want the players to come in and know that they’re going to come into work and they’re going to get the best – the best ownership, the best general manager, the best assistant coaches, the best head coach, the best training staff, the best equipment managers. I want them to feel a sense of confidence and a sense of pride. If we can instill that in them right away, the sooner the better, then we’ll have a chance to succeed at a rapid rate.”

Jay Gruden will make the players believe in themselves, their teammates and plays. That level of confidence should help improve the product on the football field.

Often times last season it was hard to tell if the Redskins’ issues were attributed to the lack of execution or if it was scheming. On both offense and defense, the Washington Redskins struggled to make plays. On defense, often times, they simply looked lost. It was the same story at times for the offense. But at the end of the day, the job of a head coach is to make his players believe.

One of Gruden’s favorite sayings is, “it’s a good play, because it’s the only play.” He gets that from his older brother Jon Gruden, and although it may be cliche, it makes the players believe that they can have success on any given down or play.

“I like them all, man,” Gruden said of his offensive philosophy and preference of plays. Sounding like his brother, he continued, “I’ve never found a play I haven’t liked that works. The one thing you really want to do is – during my process here the next few days, I want to really study the offensive personnel that we have in place. They’ve done some good things here offensively in years past. I think they’re in the top 10 the last couple years, so they have a system in place that’s very good. They’re an outside zone blocking team that can do inside zone. I like the power plays. I like the gap blocking plays. So there’s a little bit of everything. I don’t think any offense in the NFL anymore is just, ‘We are this.’ I think we have to adhere to what we have offensively, talent-wise. We can do the read option. We can do naked bootlegs. We can run outside zone. We can run bubble screens. We can run deep balls. We can do play-action deep things. I think the whole idea to be a successful offense is to be diverse and be good at a lot of different things and not just one.”

I’m pretty sure it will be refreshing for the Redskins to know their offense won’t be boxed-in anymore. As Gruden said, there won’t be, ‘we are this’ going on with the offense. It will be diverse and Gruden will adapt to the skill-set of his players.

On defense, Washington plans to keep the 3-4. “This team is built for the 34,” said Gruden. “They’ve been a 34 for a while and I love the 34. I actually hate the 34 as an offensive coordinator, so I think with the players in place here, I would love to stay a 34. That’ll be evaluated, you know I just got the job here, but I know that when we played against the Washington Redskins, I know it’s very difficult to run against them. There were some issues with the back end here and there but there is a core foundation in place. They’re well-coached on defense and I’m excited to have a chance to talk to all the candidates to still instill a 3-4 defense.”

To the dismay of many fans, Gruden plans to keep Jim Haslett on staff, although it’s not clear what exactly his title will be. Raheem Morris is also expected to be retained. We’ll have to see how that works out.

One thing I noticed with Gruden is, although he’s confident, he’s also realistic. He did’t paint a perfect picture, smile and pretend like everything has or will be rosy. I thought that was evident when he explained his role — “I will call plays,” he said. “And I will be involved in personnel decisions. It’s going to be a lot about a lot of different people involved in it. We’re not all going to agree all the time, but the big thing is to make sure we hear each other out in a calm, cool fashion, and as long as everybody has the team’s best interests at heart, like I said, we will come to an agreement on personnel decisions. That won’t be an issue.”

Jay Gruden has the tools to be a successful head coach in this league. If he can maintain his personality and mindset — not losing himself, the Redskins should be in better shape moving forward.

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