During a week which began with news that multiple offensive players were grumbling about quarterback Kirk Cousins, one former Washington player said the locker room wasn’t the source of most of the leaks there.
Via Jake Russell of the Washington Post, former Washington offensive lineman Tyler Polumbus said on his podcast that there’s a culture of leaking information to the media there.
“You know what the problem is? The front office out there doesn’t set the standard,” Polumbus said. “I honestly feel like 70 percent of the leaks come from the front office out there. So then a guy comes out and starts complaining behind the scenes [that] a player does it and it’s like, ‘Well, what are you gonna do? Because we all know that half the leaks are comin’ from the front office, so maybe you guys can shut your mouth up there and we’ll shut our mouth down here.’ ”
Polumbus also recalled former coach Mike Shanahan telling a team meeting about his decision to bench Robert Griffin III in favor of Cousins, insisting to his players that the information should be kept secret until game day.
“Literally by the time I got back to my locker and pulled up my Twitter,” Polumbus said. “It was a million different reporters saying, ‘Undisclosed player just told me that Kirk Cousins will be starting at QB this week.’ ”
Some of that is unavoidable, as the sport is so aggressively covered by many professional reporters these days. But players also don’t feel compelled to live up to any code of omerta if the boss isn’t going to.