Ashburn, Va. – By the time today’s post-practice open locker room arrived, the Washington Redskins seemed to have gotten past the events that took place earlier in the week. After suffering an ugly, ugly loss to the lowly Tampa Bay Buccaneers last Sunday, quarterback Robert Griffin, III said some things during his post-game press conference about his teammates needing to play better for the team to win (he also criticized himself, however) and his words were badly timed, badly phrased and blown up by some members of the media. His head coach’s subsequent detailed description of what his quarterback had done wrong during the game opened up a flurry of local and national media attention that was anything but complimentary.
By Wednesday, both Jay Gruden and his charge attempted to squelch the flood of negativity in their respective post-practice pressers, each in their own way. Griffin took the route of least resistance by deciding to pretty much just say one thing at his press conference — that he needed to play better and was focused on San Francisco — and Gruden basically told the media that he should not have been so open about Robert’s performance during the Tampa Bay game.
Now Gruden, Griffin and the team must regroup enough to put on a decent showing against a very motivated San Francisco 49ers team in San Francisco. Obviously the team as a whole needs to play well but, there is no chance of competing if Griffin doesn’t continue to develop his craft. The questions of the day are: will he and can he?
It would be nice to say that the answer to that question is directly related to how well he has taken to coaching this week during practice and how well that translates to his movements and decisions on the field. Unfortunately, Gruden said last week before the Bucs game that the team had had a good week of practice and we all saw that this did not, in fact, manifest into a good game-day performance.
Apparently, however, Griffin has focused only on San Francisco this week and, according to his coach and offensive coordinator, Sean McVay, the third-year signal caller has not let the events of the past week get into his mind during practices this week.He has been working hard to move forward in his development as an NFL quarterback.
As usual, Gruden was honest in his assessment of his QB in his press conference today.
“He makes progress in practice, no question,” Gruden said. “He doesn’t make every read perfect[ly] and sometimes you‘ve got to rep something again to make sure everything is right. But it’s just part of playing the position. And then come game day, you script a certain play against a certain coverage in practice but on game day you might get something totally different where you have to adjust.
“Every time you go into the game as a quarterback,” he continued, “you are prepared for what you think you are going to see. But you also have to react to some other things that could come up. Somebody might miss a block or a blitz that you haven’t seen or something. Some of it is a leap of faith where, hey, you’ve just got to adjust and know where to go with the ball versus certain things. And the more he plays, the better he will get at that.”
As well as Coach Gruden, the media had a chance to meet with McVay today. The OC obviously has the same bird’s eye view of practice every day that Gruden does and he was impressed with how well Griffin had blocked everything out from earlier in the week in order to concentrate on improving.
“Certainly there have been a lot of distractions for him,” McVay said of Griffin this week. “But I think he’s done a good job of kind of blocking everything out and focusing on the things he can control. That’s improving with the fundamentals [and] executing the game plan plays that we do have. I thought he did a nice job kind of handling that and just playing within himself through the practices that we did have.”
Based on the problems that plagued Griffin last week versus Tampa Bay, i.e., panicking and tucking the ball and scrambling even when his protection had not broken down, not seeing open receivers down field; it is imperative that he do the opposite this Sunday if there is going to be any chance that his team competes in the game Sunday. He must continue to get better if he expects to have a future here. Trusting his offensive line, remembering the fundamentals of his position and playing his game are so important to his success.
McVay seems to think it’s possible for this to happen this weekend based on the week of practice he witnessed Griffin have.
“You know, I think that anytime you get into the heat of battle,” McVay said when asked about evaluating Robert’s moving forward in practice from the tendencies he exhibited last Sunday, “things happen a lot quicker than what you’re used to and it’s really hard to emulate the speed of a game in any situation unless you’re actually playing in that game. And some things Tampa did — give them credit: they mixed some coverages up, they held disguises well — but that’s something you always talk about with every single quarterback, that understanding the timing and rhythm that each play has. These concepts have answers versus different coverages and you want to work accordingly and it is something that he can continue to improve on and, we’ll work together with all of the quarterbacks to continue to do that.”
Asked how to help Griffin though the issues he had on Sunday… the missing of the open receivers for instance, McVay indicated that it’s all about doing it again and again.
“Well it’s repetition, you know.” the OC said. “It’s understanding which coverages. Certain teams are more cognizant of quarterback keying your eyes and being able to manipulate based on what looks they’re playing. So I think each week is kind of its own entity and each play really is too. You might have some things where you want to stare down guys to open up another throwing window so I think, just like with everything else that you do, the more experience that he’s able to gain, you learn both from good and bad. And I think that allows you to positively move forward.”
Let’s hope that Griffin does, in fact, move forward.
Hail.