Considering the criticism he took for his handling of star quarterback Robert Griffin III last year, there’s no surprise Redskins coach Mike Shanahan is digging in his heels on this one.
After Griffin said he was ready to do more than 7-on-7 drills and wanted to speed up his comeback from knee surgery, Shanahan said he was sticking to the plan as originally formulated.
“We do have a plan for him. He may not always like that plan, but that’s my job, sometimes not to be liked,” Shanahan said, via Mike Jones of the Washington Post. “My job is to do the best thing for him. And that’s what I’ll do. . . .
“You always want your guys to be ready to go, and you want them to be a little bit antsy. But your job is to get them ready. I don’t want to put him in too quick for the obvious reasons, but I like what I’ve seen. Like we talked about last week, he’s making a lot of progress and getting a lot of quality work done, and if he continues to do this, he’ll get a little more freedom, a little more reps, and hopefully be ready for the first game.”
Of course, not everyone seemed to like Shanahan’s plan last year during the playoffs, and it’s easy to draw a straight line from Shanahan’s willingness to let Griffin push it when he wasn’t well to the knee injury that necessitated such an aggressive rehab.
So if that means his quarterback grumbling about the slow pace, so be it.
“We have a plan next week, and we’ll give him a little more next week and we’ll see how he does,” Shanahan said. “We’re going to do this day-by-day and gave him a little bit more freedom with each week that goes by, and hopefully, if there is no setback, he’ll be ready for the first game.”
They’ve gradually bumped him from seven snaps a practice to 17, and as close as they are to the goal of getting Griffin back for the regular season, it’s hard to imagine Shanahan changing his mind now.