WAIT! Time out. This Gruden vs. Griffin conflict has the feel Shanahan vs. Griffin v2014.
Who are you going to back this time, Daniel Snyder? The coach or the savior of Redskins football?
Jason Reid’s column in today’s Washington Paper makes clear that Jay Gruden reached the same boiling point with RG that Mike Shanahan did. It took Shanahan 13 games to shut Griffin down last year. Gruden did it in 12, four if you count the games RG actually finished.
(It took awhile, but Reid has become Jason LaCanfora, his onetime mentor at The Paper. I liked Jason LaCa. He never said anything about the Redskins that should not have been said. He defaulted to the negative near the end of his time here. Hog Heaven feels the same vibes from Reid. LaCanfora and Shanahan must be enjoying a good laugh.)
The Redskins hired Gruden to convert RGIII into a conventional NFL quarterback to, you know, extend his career. Instead, he is shortening it.
That makes Gruden a failed hire when you consider his mission.
I do not blame Gruden. Blame the flawed thinking that brought a bad mix here.
Redskins’ strategy typically focuses on a single player in the Dan Snyder star system. It gets us every time.
Yesterday, Mr. Snyder said that he was befuddled by the deterioration in RG’s skills. Look in the mirror, sir.
I am befuddled that Snyder is 'befuddled' by RG3 situation. Snyder had a lot to do with it. http://t.co/kyb4kPxSxr #flawedthinking
— Anthony Brown, The RedsCommander (@RedsCommanders) December 4, 2014
The Redskins environment under Snyder is a joke. It’s a circus.
He stood by as the relationship between Griffin and Shanahan, the two men most crucial to on-field success, shattered to non-existence. Darn if it isn’t happening again.
Griffin never was forced to compete for his starting job. That was a mistake. Even Cleveland avoided that blunder.
Special privileges for Griffin’s family may have driven a wedge in the locker room. Football is the most team-oriented of team sports. That should never have been allowed to happen. It made RG less inclined to listen to either coach. This is squarely on Snyder.
Robert Griffin III had the potential to transform the position as a genuine dual threat.
That demanded a partnership between a coachable player and an imaginative coach who believed in him that would evolve Griffin’s game so that league would never catch up. There is a question now about Griffin’s coach-ability. The innovation came from the Shanahans. That was a beautiful plan gone badly awry.
This plan to convert Griffin to a pocket passer, as RG himself once demanded to do, has instead made him less scary to opponents.
There is a certain karma about this. Griffin got everything he asked for going into the season. He even got to rub shoulders with Tom Brady in training camp. The Patriots sorta laughed at him.
By now, even RG must know how good he had it with the Shanahans.
What now?
Mike Shanahan made it impossible for Snyder to keep him. Shanny said Snyder made it impossible for him to succeed. It sounded fishy coming from a guy being kicked to the curb. But we always knew Snyder’s relationship with his stars was too personal. It is unintended, but always toxic. Thus, Hog Heaven wasn’t dismissive of Shanny’s assessmenet.
In conflicts between coaches and players, the owner should back the coach. Snyder never seems to get that. Whatever the issue between Gruden and Griffin, the owner should back the coach. Hog Heaven has reservations about Gruden, but he is the coach.
Tough love may work with the kid. Make Gruden understand that his role is still to make Griffin a star by whatever means. Pushing the “coach reset” button dooms us to another year of this.
We can save this. It requires owner brilliance we have yet to see.
Hog Heaven advises the owner to take a deep breath. Think strategically. Go outside of himself and the team to find advisers who are good at building organizations that win. There is more to it than picking players that fans have heard of.
Snyder manages these things poorly, but human potential is unbounded.
Meh. Who am I kidding but myself?
This will end badly and then will get worse.
Report: Jay Gruden could be 'one and done' with the Redskins http://t.co/9bVQRkUy4j pic.twitter.com/4fziEdpvNH
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) December 7, 2014
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