A day after veteran Washington receiver Santana Moss offered up a biting assessment of quarterback Robert Griffin III’s failure to take blame, Moss didn’t take blame for his biting assessment of Robert Griffin III.
“I read a quote and it said, ‘Moss says RGIII needs to take more responsibility for losses,’” Moss said, via the Washington Post. “That never came out of my mouth. I said that if I’m put in the situation, as a leader, I will stand up and say, ‘me, I,’ and that’s what I said. So that’s what happens. People see stuff that’s written or said and if it’s not said directly, then don’t lose no sleep on it. And me and Robert talked today and that’s the type of relationship we have. We can talk and get to know or to express what was really said because that’s what we have in this locker room.”
On Tuesday, Moss may not have said, “RGIII needs to take more responsibility for losses,” but that was the import of the words. Especially when considering the full content of what Moss actually told LaVar Arrington and Chad Dukes.
And then Moss basically repeated the message about how players should handle the issue of taking blame.
“I was sending a message to players who might be put in that situation,” Moss said. “What I said was if I’m a quarterback or if I’m a leader, if I’m the person whoever, if I drop a ball, then it’s me. It don’t matter how it came or what the other guy did. It’s me. But at that time, I was picturing myself as being the quarterback and what could I tell you all to stop the madness is, the only thing I can say out of my mouth is at the end of the day, I’m the guy last that has to make the play, whether it’s a play to win it and we won it or it’s a play that we didn’t win. If we won, I’m gonna say, ‘Hey, we did a great job.’ If we didn’t, I’m gonna say, ‘I have to control us, our game, better. And I have to do a better job,’ because at the end of the day, that’s what y’all want to hear or not. But that’s what I feel that’ s best. And that’s what I tried to get across.”
So Moss wasn’t saying Griffin needs to take more responsibility for losses. Moss was saying that he personally would take more responsibility for losses, and that other players such as quarterbacks and leaders should use the example provided by Moss as guidance for their own comments in similar situations.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that Griffin, a quarterback and supposed leader, needs to take more responsibility for losses, especially since in response to the latest loss Griffin has blamed the coaches for not crafting better schemes and the receivers for not getting open on the team’s final play from scrimmage.
So Moss didn’t say what some in the media claim he said. He said something else that means the same thing.