As many of you know by know I am a die hard Redskins fan and will defend my team and it's players and will do it with facts. The Redskins are one of the NFL's most storied Franchises dating back to 1932 when they were the Boston Braves which was owned by George Preston Marshall until 1969 when he died and Edward Bennett Williams took over and ran the Redskins while Jack Kent Cooke who was the Majority Stock holder of the Redskins also ran his other sports team the Los Angeles Lakers and the LA Kings as well.
In the last few weeks the Redskins have been the main topic on ESPN for many reasons and the most popular one is RG3 and first year coach Jay Gruden.
The Redskins fired Mike Shanahan in the off-season and hired Jay Gruden who was the offensive coordinator for the Bengals from 2011-2013 who's Brother John Gruden worked with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2003-2011 and whom also worked for the Raiders as well.
Jay Gruden should of never been hired as the Redskins coach for many reasons and the biggest one being that he was "not" the reason why the Bengals turned things around while he was their offensive coordinator. The Bengals have not shown any signs of missing Jay Gruden as their offensive coordinator, in fact the Bengals are doing very well with a 6-3-1 record, 21st overall in passing and 9th overall rushing.
In the three years that Jay Gruden was offensive coordinator, they had two different running backs who had over 1100 yards rushing in those 3 years which helped the development of Andy Dalton who was already regarded as a pure pocket passer which is what most NFL teams look for in their Franchise Quarterbacks. In his rookie year Andy Dalton had 3398 passing yards, 20 tds and 13 ints and having a good running back in Cedric Benson his rookie year helped him gain huge confidence to a 9-7 rookie year record.
In Washington Jay Gruden took over a team who was 5th in the league in rushing and 16th overall in passing last year. This year the Redskins are 16th overall rushing and 7th overall passing yet they only have 3 wins this season.
Jay Gruden has made horrible decisions all year long from player personnel to the coaching staff which he agreed to retain from last year's coaching staff.
Jay Gruden's first mistake this year was letting RG3 play the first two games. It was very clear that RG3 was not ready from his performance in game one against the Houston Texans. He was sacked 3 times and only averaged an anemic 6 yards per pass that game. The Redskins punted on their first 4 possessions and finally scored halfway into the 2nd quarter only to have their extra point blocked then having their next drive's punt attempt blocked.
RG3 fumbled the ball 2 times that game, he ran the ball 3 times for 2 yards and only had 48 yards passing in the 3rd quarter and 73 in the 4th when the game had 1:55 left before it was over. By that time the Texans had the game well under wraps, not even a td would of helped the Redskins which is why the Texans allowed RG3 to pass for 73 yards that drive.
Then they play the Jaguars and RG3 gets hurt on the 5th play of the 2nd drive as RG3 is running for his life from the pass rush going out of bounds. RG3 was not ready to play both physically and most definately not mentally that early. Jay Gruden should of started Kirk Cousins or Colt McCoy from game one until RG3 was 100% both physically and mentally. All Jay Gruden did this year was create annomosity in the Redskins lockeroom, he divided a team that was already having doubts about RG3's durability from last year and whos offense and defense were pointing fingers at each other all of last year.
The Redskins lost 4 games in a row against the Eagles, Giants, Seahawks and Cardinals respectively. In those 4 games the Redskins only gave the ball to Morris more than 13 times one time and that was gainst the Eagles just losing that game by a score of 34-37 in the last minutes of that game.
The Redskins have won 3 games none of them with RG3 as their quarterback. Colt McCoy has won both of his 2 starts this year and Cousins won his game filling in for RG3 against the Jaguars.
Now I am not saying that RG3 is not a good quarterback or that he is not the Redskins future at quarterback, but both Snyder and Jay Gruden should of been smarter and waited this year to put RG3 on the field. RG3 is now fighting for his job even though he is the starter and fighting for respect in the Redskins locker room when he could of been perfectly fine while either Cousins or McCoy played in his place as he got stronger physically and mentally from last years injury.
At the end of this season Snyder willl have to decide between RG3 or Jay Gruden. The Redskins will owe $18 million to RG3 if they decide to keep him and extend his contract beyond this season which will probably create even more drama and dislike towards RG3 from the other players. No one agrees that RG3 is worth $18 million not even I, yes his lowsly play is mostly due to the fact that he has been injured, but committing to a player who has been injury prone since his rookie year and even as a college player is a huge risk.
If the Redskins can convince RG3 and who ever is coach next year that running the ball is the only way that the Redskins will be successful and keep RG3 healthy then RG3 can still become a very good quarterback in the NFL. RG3 has the arm strenght to be a very good passer in the NFL, he showed his his rookie year and at Baylor, but the Redskins need to find bigger receivers for RG3 to throw the ball to. The last few years the Redskins have failed to draft or sign big targets for their quarterbacks, Snyder for some reason has this obession with small receivers who only have speed and below average hands.
Almost every team in the NFL uses their running backs out of the backfield without problems, using the screens with a lot of success, yet the Redskins rarely call screen plays and they have a very good running back in Roy Helu Jr. who can catch the ball very well out of the backfield and has very good power and speed to break away.
Jay Gruden and Jim Haslett should be fired after this season and Snyder needs to hire a coaching staff that is going to be respected by all of the players and who are going to be allowed to "coach" by Snyder.
If RG3 wants to save his career, he will stay in Washington, sign an incentive-laden contract which will reward him if he performs as expected and stays healthy and understands and agrees that having a running game in which "He" is not the star will prolong his career and help the Redskins win games.
Next year the Redskins can try and hire Todd Bowles who played for the Redskins in the late 80s and with whom he won a Super Bowl under then coach Joe Gibbs. Todd Bowles is one of the most aggressive defensive coordinators in the NFL right now. He has been running the 3-4 defense in Arizona the last 2 years and who can easily switch back to the 4-3.
So who do you guys think will stay in Washinton next year, RG3 or Jay Gruden or both?
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