Washington Redskins Must Move on from Jay Gruden

Jay Gruden, you are summarily charged with inheriting a 3-13 team and making it look worse. You are found guilty of adding fresh layers of chaos to a Washington Redskins organization already defined by dysfunction for the best part of 20 years.

Jay Gruden, you are culpable for failing to improve the quarterback you were hired to develop. Guilty of keeping a failing defensive coordinator in charge of a unit that still surrenders big plays as if they come free in a cereal box.

You are guilty of causing a regression in a once-dominant ground game, the only real strength of the team. Guilty of fielding an offensive line and special teams unit somehow worse than the dire ones you inherited.

Your sentence? Fired after one season in charge. 

USA TODAY Sports

Whenever a head coach goes one-and-done it looks bad for a franchise. It says nothing good about the decision-making processes that hired said coach in the first place, along with the mechanisms for providing him with a roster to succeed.

Not only that, but canning a coach after a single campaign can also indicate a knee-jerk culture in a franchise, one dedicated to the quick fix rather than building for sustained future successes.

The first of those implications certainly rings true. If you want a quick note on why the Redskins have been so bad for so long, it's a simple read: Bad coaches.

Gruden is just one more newcomer, one more supposed wunderkind out of his depth. He stands alongside Steve Spurrier, Jim Zorn and even Norv Turner in that category.

The overrated coach living off name recognition is currently a one-man category housing Gruden's predecessor Mike Shanahan. With this many bad hires since the franchise last won a Super Bowl in January 1992, it's no wonder the Redskins have been so bad.

The brunt of the blame for those bad decisions lies with owner Dan Snyder and the general managers he's consulted with to make those hires. The latest fiasco ropes Bruce Allen into the blame game.

The ironic thing is that on the last two occasions he's had to hire a new coach, Snyder's had the right idea. After the embarrassing Zorn era, the franchise needed a name exuding experience, stature and, most importantly, relevance. Shanahan was just the wrong choice.

Following four years in his intractable, totalitarian grip, Washington needed optimism, the kind of hope for the future only a young, up-and-coming candidate can provide. Gruden was just the wrong choice.

He's proved to be the wrong choice via decisions he's made, decisions that are his alone and can't be laid at management's door. It was Gruden's decision to never appear wholly committed to developing Robert Griffin III, something that was the main reason for hiring him in the first place.

It was Gruden who thought the best way to deal with the Griffin dilemma was abrasive tough talk and a public shaming policy. It was his decision pull the plug on project Griffin after only four full starts.

It was also Gruden's belief that he could build a team around Colt McCoy. That's right, Colt McCoy. Comments relayed by Liz Clarke of The Washington Post revealed Gruden's thinking:

"

We’ll see what happens these last four games. Then as a staff we’ll have to talk about the future of the position — whether we’re going to build around Colt, whether we’re going to have a competition between Colt and Robert and Kirk.

"

Build around the guy who went 6-15 with the Cleveland Browns and couldn't keep Brandon Weeden on the bench? That's some enviable optimism from Gruden.

But guess what? McCoy is still the same quarterback he was for the Browns. That was obvious as he directed an offensive shutout by the St. Louis Rams in Week 14, something noted by 106.7 The Fan host Grant Paulsen:

McCoy is the third quarterback Gruden has lost with this season. Sandwiched between the Griffin-McCoy swap was Kirk Cousins, the one passer who should be most suited to Gruden's pocket-based scheme.

But after a fast start, Cousins turned into an interception machine. In the same way, McCoy's fast start, beating the Dallas Cowboys on the road in Week 8, has quickly become an afterthought in his ongoing struggles.

When a team can't win with three different quarterbacks you have to look at the coach. In fact, you have to do more than look. You have to call him to account for not putting any member of that trio in a realistic position to win.

Tied intrinsically to that is the lack of success on the ground. Alfred Morris started to struggle last season, but still finished with his second straight 1,000-yard campaign. If he achieves a third, it'll be a testament to how he's stayed strong despite being practically ignored for large portions of this campaign.

As a play-caller, Gruden seems violently opposed to the notion of leaning on the run. Whenever he has, it's just been a teaser, a cruel jibe to get Morris' hopes up before shoving him back into the shadows again.

Take a look at Morris's carries per game this season for proof:

Week	Game	Carries	Yards	Touchdowns
1	at Houston Texans	14	91	0
2	Home vs. Jacksonville Jaguars	22	85	2
3	at Philadelphia Eagles	23	77	0
4	Home vs. New York Giants	12	63	1
5	Home vs. Seattle Seahawks	13	29	0
6	Away vs. Arizona Cardinals	13	41	0
7	Home vs. Tennessee Titans	18	54	0
8	Away vs. Dallas Cowboys	18	73	1
9	Away vs. Minnesota Vikings	19	92	2
10	Bye
11	Home vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers	20	96	0
12	Away vs. San Francisco 49ers	21	125	1
13	Away vs. Indianapolis Colts	17	67	0
14	Home vs. St. Louis Rams	8	6	0

That a 20-carry per game workhorse like Morris would have received less than that figure nine times this season is mystifying. That he went below 15 carries in five of those nine games is appalling.

It's been particularly grating in the last two weeks. By not leaning on Morris against the Indianapolis Colts, Gruden made two glaring errors.

First, he failed to torment a soft run defense and keep star quarterback Andrew Luck off the field the way the New England Patriots had two weeks earlier. Second, he put McCoy in a passing duel with Luck. Not surprisingly, there was only ever going to be one winner.

Giving Morris less than 10 carries against the Rams may have been an even worse blunder. That left McCoy at the mercy of a fearsome St. Louis pass rush. In all, the Rams swarmed in for seven sacks, largely thanks to the Redskins consistently putting themselves in long-yardage situations.

Nick Wass/Associated Press

Granted, the St. Louis D played Washington's trademark zone-stretch runs tough. But Morris, like any top back, needs the chance to establish some rhythm.

Gruden has rarely afforded him that chance. In fact, he often seems awfully eager to go away from Morris altogether. How long will it be before Gruden gets behind a microphone and publicly verbally eviscerates Morris the way he did Griffin?

It shouldn't be possible for a team possessing Morris, Roy Helu Jr. and fullback Darrel Young to rank 22nd in rushing. Then again, it shouldn't be possible for a coach hired for his offensive expertise to call plays for a unit that's 27th in scoring.

But it's not just one side of the ball being undermined by Gruden's decisions. He agreed to leaving Jim Haslett in charge of the defense, the same group that ranks 25th in points.

Ex-middle linebacker London Fletcher's public tirade against Haslett on CBS Sports Network's That Other Pregame Show (h/t Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post), was certainly unseemly:

"

Why does Jim Haslett still have his job as a defensive coordinator after five years now of just ineptitude at the defensive coordinator position? He’s clueless as a defensive coordinator. He lacks attention to detail. He lacks feel on how to call a game.

...

For years he has always made excuses. One minute it was ‘We’re changing from the 3-4 and we don’t have the right personnel.’ Next minute it is salary cap. Next minute it is Mike Shanahan. Next minute it is injuries.

"

But despite the crude and somewhat callous nature of Fletcher's remarks, can any fan who's suffered through nearly five seasons of Haslett's defenses really disagree with the sentiments?

USA TODAY Sports

Similar to the situation at quarterback, if Shanahan was the problem then why hasn't Gruden's arrival made things any better. Why does the situation look worse?

The answer lies with the coach who was the wrong hire from day one. He wanted a pocket passer and pursued a job at a team with a read-option quarterback. He had a preference for bigger linemen when he ran the offense for the Cincinnati Bengals, but took over a team light in the trenches. He calls a pass-first scheme for a unit stronger running the ball.

Gruden inherited a defense that had floundered during the previous four seasons, but he still maintained the status quo in terms of coaching and scheme.

The results have been painfully inevitable: A 3-10 record, a cul-de-sac of indecision and ineptitude at quarterback and a still struggling defense.

From day one, Gruden has acted as though he took over armed with Shanahan's "five-year plan." He may have been given a five-year deal, but Gruden's Redskins were supposed to win a lot sooner.

He acknowledged as much after the Rams defeat, per Deron Snyder of The Washington Times: "Obviously, before the season started we had high hopes. Things happened to us and now we are where we are."

Now Gruden is starting to sound an awful lot like Shanahan:

"

It’s something that’s going to be a process. It’s going to take good drafts, good free agents, getting young players in here and taught well — how to study, how to learn, how to prepare, how to play and how to finish games. That’s something we’re going through right now and trying to change it.

"

Teams engaging in a process don't spend big bucks on veterans like DeSean Jackson and Jason Hatcher. Teams looking for building blocks for the future don't use the bulk of a draft on "depth" players, most of whom either don't make the final roster or can't get on the field.

If this is merely the first chapter in a prolonged rebuilding phase that will eventually bear fruit, where are the signs of progress, the hope that better things will come? There certainly haven't been any during this five-game losing skid.

Like Shanahan before him, Gruden's abrasive personality has written checks he'll never be able to cash. He's selling something you shouldn't buy.

It's already time to start looking for his replacement. Although, given Washington's recent track record hiring coaches, even that process should make you nervous.

All statistics via NFL.com.