With the handwriting etched into the wall by the repeated public remarks of coach Jay Gruden, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reports that Gruden is prepared to bench Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III, if Griffin continues his ineffective play on Sunday at San Francisco.
If benched, Griffin’s replacement would be Colt McCoy, who led the team to wins over the Titans and Cowboys while Griffin was recovering from a dislocated ankle.
Gruden’s brother, Jon, works for ESPN, making it tempting to connect the dots from Gruden to Gruden to Mortensen.
The coach has gone all in against Griffin this week, calling him out for calling out teammates and for having bad fundamentals in a post-bye week 20-point loss to Tampa Bay. After a temporary backtracking, Gruden then told NFL Media (partially owned by owner Daniel Snyder) that the “clock’s ticking” on Griffin, who has been “coddled” in the past.
Like last season’s late-season dysfunction between Griffin and former coach Mike Shanahan, these developments suggest that player or coach won’t be back in 2015. Silent amid the turmoil has been both G.M. Bruce Allen and owner Daniel Snyder. How they feel about Griffin and Gruden will go a long way toward determining which guy will return in 2015.
Surely, they don’t believe that the two men will continue to be able to coexist after the coach has so publicly condemned a quarterback who already had a well-earned reputation for being sensitive to criticism.