Is Jay Gruden's Refreshingly Candid Approach with Media Becoming a Distraction?

I love a Jay Gruden press conference.

In an NFL where every coach wants to be the next Bill Belichick, podiums across the league are being manned by tight-lipped gargoyles glowering down from on high who treat injury updates like state secrets.

From a columnist's perspective, Gruden's honest, extensive takes on the state of his team are a breath of fresh air. No guessing games with the depth charts; no double-talk baloney sputtered to pretend he, his staff or his players never make mistakes.

In his Dec. 16 press conference, though, his penchant for speaking freely got him in a little trouble.

Mike Jones of The Washington Post live-tweeted Gruden's presser, sending out condensed, paraphrased versions of Gruden's statements. More than a few football analysts, including yours truly, were taken aback at how harsh, even biting, his comments sounded.

Quickly, reaction pieces went up around the Internet. Jason Lisk at The Big Lead penned one called, "Jay Gruden Is Basically Asking to Be Fired with Comments about Robert Griffin III." Eric Edholm at Yahoo Sports wondered, "Does Jay Gruden Dislike RG3? Or Is Gruden Trying to Help Him?"

None of the above, as it turns out.

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk jerked the brake lever on the reaction train, pulling from the full official transcript. Given the full version and context of Jones' greatly abridged quips, Gruden's comments are honest, but not in a brutal, cruel or undercutting way.

Jones, while tweeting out the link to his completed story, gave those who disseminated his comments a piece of his mind:

There's a debate to be had about Internet best practices—but not in this column.

Gruden, here, is an inversion of the boy who cried wolf: He's so candid, so frequently, we all believed he really might tell a group of gathered media "it's important to get a lead so Griffin doesn't have to do a lot of dropback passing and defense reading."

There's no debate on this point. Griffin's weakness in seeing the field and executing is well documented. In five starts (seven games overall) he's thrown 150 passes for three touchdowns, three interceptions and 4.93 adjusted net yards per attempt, per Pro Football Reference. He's also fumbled seven times and been sacked a stunning 28 times.

His astounding 15.7 percent sack rate, if he had enough attempts to qualify, would be one-and-a-half times more frequent than Colin Kaepernick, the most often sacked starter in the NFL, according to Pro Football Reference.

Tuesday's comments aside, Gruden wasn't wrong when he said last month that Griffin "needs to worry about himself," via Brian McNally of CBS DC radio, and not the performance of his teammates.

Gruden may have been joking in September when he told ESPN 980 prized free-agent receiver DeSean Jackson is a "very terrible blocker," per Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post—but he wasn't wrong. So far this season, Pro Football Focus (subscription required) grades Jackson 109th out of 113 qualifying receivers in blocking.

Gruden's just calling a spade a spade.

What's wrong with that? It's Gruden's brother, Jon Gruden, whose job it is to watch football and be honest about it. It's Jay Gruden's job to be Griffin's boss.

Can you imagine your boss going on a corporate conference call and telling everyone it's all your fault? Even if you accidentally dropped the coffee pot onto the copier, ruining them both, your boss blaming you by name for not getting the sales invoices filed on time would hurt, personally and professionally.

As head coach of an NFL franchise, Gruden has to do right by his players.

Gruden, to his credit, is being candid about Griffin's performance and role in this team. This was something his predecessor, Mike Shanahan, either didn't have the guts or permission to do.

It's no wonder Gruden's been so bold: NBC 4's Dianna Marie Russini says Gruden has been given a vote of confidence that he can return for 2015:

Gruden, though, needs to keep his mind on whoever's going to be his starting quarterback next year and beyond.

Even if that's not Griffin (it won't be Griffin), what veteran is going to want to come to a place where his dirty laundry is press-conference fodder? What leader wants to risk being publicly undermined like that?

Even if Gruden's successfully distanced himself from Griffin's poor quarterback play—a problem he was presumably hired to fix—what price is he going to pay for throwing his struggling quarterback under the bus?

A bombastic, off-the-cuff, no-punches-pulled personality like Rex Ryan's goes over like gangbusters when a team is winning. Ryan's impeccable bloodlines, impressive resume as a coordinator and back-to-back AFC championship games gave him artistic license to be as honest as he wanted.

Now that the Jets are 3-11, Ryan's ego has been humbled, and his quotes have been demure. Gruden doesn't have anywhere near the track record or credibility Ryan has, and his team has the same 3-11 record.

Gruden's candor and insight have been a welcome change in Washington press conferences, and we can chalk this misstep up to inexperience. But if Gruden's going to be there for the long haul, he needs to remember employees have long memories.