For better or for worse, Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden is still committed to fourth-year quarterback Robert Griffin III, despite his horrible preseason performances.
Over the past two preseason games, Griffin managed to complete only 6 of 13 passing attempts for 44 yards. Fortunately, there were no interceptions along the way—nor any touchdowns.
During RG3’s very limited preseason action, he also endured three brutal sacks in the second preseason game against the Detroit Lions, causing him to sustain a concussion.
With that said, Gruden reiterated on Tuesday that there will be no competition for the starting job even though backups Kirk Cousins and Colt McCoy have outperformed Griffin. During the course of the preseason, Griffin has achieved a 54.6 passer rating compared to Cousins’ 118.3 and McCoy’s 131.6.
Since Griffin has been “banned” from addressing the media after boldly claiming that he is the best quarterback in the NFL, things haven’t gone as well as he likely hoped.
But it’s not all about him, according to Gruden:
“First of all, it’s not about him. It’s about that unit, the first-team unit,” Gruden said (via ESPN). “We’ve got to have better protection out of all of them. As soon as we start to make it about one guy, that’s not what we’re trying to do. We’d like to get something going with the first unit, period. With Robert in general, just get the ball out of his hands, move the ball and make good, sound decisions. Let the players around him help him.”
Gruden also blamed bad play calling:
“Every play is its own entity. You’d like to say, ‘He could’ve done this, could’ve done that.’ From a play-calling standpoint and from a quarterback standpoint, we’ve got to stay out of the negative plays.”
Gruden’s commitment to RG3 aligns with a report from January when he said the team would stick with the embattled signal-caller as their starter. Griffin will get another chance to redeem himself if he is cleared from all concussion symptoms when Washington plays the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday.