Washington Redskins: Is This The End Of The RGIII Era?

The Washington Redskins have officially benched QB Robert Griffin III in favor of Colt McCoy after two ineffective games at helm against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and San Francisco 49ers.

This isn’t a statement move by Jay Gruden. A statement move would be benching Ryan Clark. The locker room was given exactly what they wanted at this point. This, in my opinion, is a power move by Gruden. His approach to handling this QB and front office is one that I’ve never seen before. I’m highly interested in seeing if it works. He’s almost being insubordinate. He’s playing with fire. That could turn out to be a positive. But it’s high risk, high reward.

Robert Griffin III has not played well, making this decision from an on-field standpoint easy. His mechanics have been bad, he’s not seeing the field well at all and he appears to be unwilling to throw the football into tight spaces. On film, it’s almost as if Griffin isn’t trusting his receivers to get open. He won’t throw the football until they’re clearly open and have their head turned to the football. His anticipation skills simply are not there right now. He’s not completely all-in on playing as a dual threat Quarterback. Griffin has struggled with the basics. He simply has not given this team a chance to win for over a year now. He’s been highly erratic and from a present-tense football standpoint, it’s not surprising that Gruden made the move.

Many believe this isn’t the end for Griffin in Washington, but I don’t know how you repair that bridge. How can Robert Griffin III trust this organization? They have failed him and in turn Griffin is failing the team.

The Washington Redskins mismanaged Robert Griffin III day one. They blocked him from media, they treated him like the President of these United States of America and that in turn polluted his mind. They empowered him. Not to mention, the perception of Griffin started to change in both the public and his teammate’s minds. This all happened day one.

They left him to die in that Seattle Seahawks playoff game in 2013. The team went on to totally disrespect the game of professional football by starting Griffin for the 2013 season after zero meaningful off-season snaps. Griffin displayed horrible mechanics that year and played as if the game was too fast for him.

2014 was supposed to be the year Griffin would get coached up and molded into a true NFL Quarterback. But it hasn’t happened. Jay Gruden is not a QB Guru, as quiet as it’s kept. He has not proven to be that. Yet, he decided not to hire a QB coach and has a first time offensive coordinator that has never coached QBs in his life.

What exactly did the Redskins do to help Griffin become a better quarterback this off-season? The hire of Jay Gruden was impulsive. While I like him as a coach and am interested in seeing if he’s capable of changing the culture at Redskins Park, the truth is GM Bruce Allen decided on Jay Gruden early in the 2013 season. Once Allen realized Stanford Head Coach and close friend David Shaw wasn’t interested in the NFL — it was Gruden and that mindset wasn’t changing. All Bruce Allen did was kill time during the coaching hunt, while waiting for Gruden and the Cincinnati Bengals to complete their playoff game. Bruce Allen did nothing but kick stones with other coaching candidates. None of them had a legitimate chance.

Bruce Allen is determined to continue building his family atmosphere at Redskins Park with coaches he’s friends with. That organization is too lazy to operate the way good organizations do. They don’t believe in a process. They have no patience. They have no direction.

Where do they go now? You’ve benched the “believed” franchise QB that they’ve basically run out the building. You’ve burned a bridge with Kirk Cousins, who also appeared to show some signs of regression with his fundamentals this season. They have no plan and they have no future. It’s vintage Washington Redskins. This is business as usual. All things end disastrously in Washington. They’ll regret this when Robert Griffin III is tearing it up for another team.

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