Anyone clamoring to see Kirk Cousins at quarterback for the Redskins is going to have to take a page from the book of Tim Tebow’s backers in Jacksonville and stage a rally because the team isn’t making a quarterback change.
Shanahan was asked at his Monday press conference if he had given any consideration to benching Robert Griffin III in favor of Cousins after watching the Redskins get handled fairly easily by the Eagles and Packers in the first two weekends of the season. Shanahan laughed in response to the question before saying no and reiterating that the team has a lot of confidence in Griffin.
Shanahan also shot down the notion that the team was running fewer read-option plays this season because Griffin was still hurting by saying that falling behind early in each game has forced them to alter the game plan away from those kinds of plays. The coach said the team is confident that Griffin is physically able to do anything they ask.
“If we didn’t feel that way, he wouldn’t be in there,” Shanahan said, via Mark Maske of the Washington Post.
There’s understandable and obvious concern in Washington about the outcome of the first two games, although those who expected Griffin to be 100 percent in all facets of his game after not playing a single preseason down were misguided in the first place. Comparing players when it comes to recovery from injury is always dicey, but we’ll point out that Adrian Peterson topped 88 rushing yards once in the first six games last season and things turned out pretty well for him when all was said and done.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t vital that they get better outings from Griffin, but it’s hardly the only problem with the Redskins. It’s not even the biggest one. Griffin could be playing lights out and it wouldn’t matter with a defense that’s given up 1,023 yards in the first two games. It’s the first time a team has given up more than 1,000 yards in the first two games in almost half a century, which suggests that there are more pressing needs than getting Cousins playing time in the nation’s capital.