Despite the Philadelphia Eagles 53-20 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday …
Despite quarterback Mark Sanchez having a slight return to Earth throwing two interceptions (as well as throwing for two more touchdowns and 346 yards) …
Despite the question going forward, which is the better quarterback going forward the rest of the season, you have to feel somewhat good as an Eagles fan.
Why, you ask? It could be worse. You could be a fan of the NFL team in Washington having to deal with their quarterback situation. It is getting ugly.
“U-G-L-Y and you ain’t got no alabi. You ugly. What! What! You ugly!”
After a 27-7 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at home, fans in Washington did not take too kindly to the performance of one Robert Lee Griffin III. Griffin threw for 207 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions. Towards the end of the game, chants of “We want Colt” rained down from the stands at FedEx Field.
“We want Colt”, of course, being a request by the fans to insert Colt McCoy into the game — who in a fill-in role in Griffin’s absence and Kirk Cousin’s ineptitude won two games including the shocking win in Dallas last month.
Fans thinking McCoy is the quarterback they wish for either now or in the future in anything more than a spot starter role is a bit foolish (ask the Cleveland Browns how that one panned out). For the rest of the season, management in Washington has one thing to figure out. Is Griffin on the road we want to go or is he a detour that we should avoid altogether?
If Griffin is how the Washington wants to proceed, he will have to side-step the numerous land mines he left for himself after yesterday’s press conference. (He’ll probably also have to side step landmines his teammates leave him after Griffin threw them under the bus.)
“It takes 11 men,” Griffin said. “It doesn’t take one guy, and that’s proven. If you want to look at the good teams in this league and the great quarterbacks, the Peytons and the Aaron Rodgers, those guys don’t play well if their guys don’t play well. They don’t.”
That’s all fine and good, Robert, but have you looked at your statistics lately? Since taking the NFL by storm in his rookie season, Griffin is now 4-13 as a starter. He has thrown for just over 3,900 yards in that same time frame and has 18 touchdowns to 15 interceptions. The electrifying speed also seems to have dissipated. In just three years, Griffin has gone from being able to outrun just about anyone on the field to being chased down by Connor Barwin for a sack. (No disrepsect, Connor, but you’re not exactly fleet of foot, my friend.)
Yes, it takes 11 guys to win consistently. You’re also one of the 11 that isn’t getting the job done. You’re just one part of this moldy sandwich that the fans in Washington are trying to choke down from week to week like Homer Simpson trying to eat his moldy, poisonous sandwich from season for.
Speaking of poisonus things either going in or coming out of someone’s mouth, former Eagle/questionable gang member DeSean Jackson had something to say about his team’s performance yesterday as well as an indictment on the season as a whole. Jackson took to Instagram yesterday with this gem.
If Griffin is the guy that threw his teammates under the bus, Jackson is the guy driving the bus, backing it up, and then driving forward again … dragging a huge piece of sandpaper behind it with a sumo wrestler on top.
Jackson is having an okay season (40 catches, 819 yards, 4 TDs), but he has to be looking up I-95 and seeing what Jeremy Maclin is doing (57 catches, 921 yards, 9 TDs) and thinking about how bad he may or may not have screwed up quite possibly his best situation.
It has been a long first season for head coach Jay Gruden — who should be given a small cut of Andy Dalton’s last paycheck given how pedestrian Dalton has looked this season. (Does that really shock anyone, though?) Gruden was brought in partly to nurture Griffin and improve on a foundation that was there. Now, there seems to be regression as Gruden himself said.
“Robert had some fundamental flaws. His footwork was below average. He took three-step drops when he should have taken five. He took a one-step drop when he should have taken three, on a couple occasions, and that can’t happen. He stepped up when he didn’t have to step up and stepped into pressure. He read the wrong side of the field a couple times. So from his basic performance just critiquing Robert it was not even close to being good enough to what we expect from the quarterback position.”
Gruden is right. It’s getting to the point where Griffin can barely read a defense and is relying on athleticism that just isn’t there anymore. (Think Michael Vick in his last two seasons in Atlanta.) Perhaps we’re all over reacting. Granted, Griffin has only had three starts in this offense that is 100-percent brand new after Washington kicked the Shanahans to the curb last offseason. He is completing over 70-percent of his passes in four games this season, so maybe there is some small sliver of positivity in an otherwise totally negative situation.
Then again, we could all be right, and Griffin could be part of a growing fungus that will swallow the team whole leaving nothing but dank smells and broken dreams — kind of like the situation with the Oakland Athletics sewage problem.
Either way, the situation in Washington is steadily reaching “Elephant Man” levels of ugliness. The beauty of Griffin’s promise as the savior of the Washington Professional Football team has been replaced by the disgusting images of looking at how the Rams have built their team with the 700 draft picks Washington gave up to trade up to get Griffin in 2012.
Next season could bring the possibility of more cosmetic surgery for this franchise if Daniel Snyder and his minions decide they want to draft another quarterback like either Marcus Mariotta or Jameis Winston. How long would that beauty last before that situation got ugly and another coach/QB combination would be brought on?
George Carlin once said in a joke about his sex life: “I never (f-word)ed a 10, but one time I (f-word)ed five “2”s.”
It’s time for Washington to find a “10” and possibly not Robert Griffin III.
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