Former Washington quarterback Joe Theismann now serves as the color commentator for the team’s preseason broadcasts, and he’s not impressed with what he’s seeing from Robert Griffin III.
Discussing Griffin’s poor performance before he was injured last week against the Lions, Theismann said that Griffin still hasn’t learned basic pocket awareness.
“The thing that disappointed me the other night is one of the things that is stressed very, very diligently by the coaches is protect the football in the pocket,” Theismann said on NewsChannel 8, via the Washington Post. “Protect the football when you’re trying to escape the pocket. The ball just fell out of Robert’s hands when he wound up getting hurt. That’s a concern for me. That has nothing to do with the offensive line, absolutely nothing to do with the protection. That has to do with the fundamentals of the position, and those are the things that Robert, he can’t be a continuing work in progress.”
Although Washington’s offensive line has received a great deal of criticism for not protecting Griffin well enough, the reality is that no quarterback gets perfect protection from his offensive line, and Griffin needs to be able to feel the pass rush coming and get rid of the ball more quickly. Last year Griffin took sacks at a historic rate, while Colt McCoy and Kirk Cousins were sacked far less frequently while playing behind the same offensive line. Theismann acknowledged that Washington’s line has its flaws, but he said it’s on the quarterback to find a way to overcome protection problems.
“Morgan Moses is coming off a Lisfranc injury on his foot, Brandon Scherff is a rookie, they’re works in progress,” Theismann said. “You’ve got about two weeks for the works in progress to be up to speed to be able to play at a high NFL level. Time’s running out. You need to see something. The fans need to see something to get excited, or at least get comfortable with where the Redskins are as far as their position at quarterback goes.”
So far this preseason, Griffin has done nothing to get fans comfortable with the quarterback position.