Why There Is Still Hope for Robert Griffin's Future in the NFL
It's easy to get carried away with Robert Griffin III.
After his first season, he was changing the landscape of the NFL. His athleticism, arm strength and willingness to work from both inside and outside of the pocket were something the NFL hadn't ever seen from a rookie.
Twenty-two games, 24 months, multiple injuries, one scheme change and the arrival of a new head coach have passed since that point; and now the question is if Griffin should even be on the team's roster.
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A former Washington tight end and teammate of Griffin's was one of his most outspoken critics. Chris Cooley aggressively went after Griffin's on-field performances during the season before attacking his off-field contributions toward the end of the year.
On his radio show (h/t Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post) Cooley lay a lot of the franchise's problems at the feet of the young quarterback:
"“He does not positively influence your organization in any way shape or form,” the ESPN 980 host and Redskins Radio Network analyst said. “Develop him or not, he is constantly a negative impact on everything surrounding the Washington Redskins. He’s a polarizing figure to your fan base and to what your team is, and that is not the way to build — with drama — an organization from the bottom up.
“Sorry,” Cooley then said. “I like him. But he’s a symbol of what’s wrong right now with this team, or what potentially will be wrong in the future, what our owner does and doesn’t do. And the owner’s not leaving, and I don’t think the coach should leave, and that symbol will remain. And it will remain polarizing [after] any loss in the future if he’s here.”
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It must be noted that Cooley is still an employee of Dan Snyder despite not playing for the team anymore. Snyder owns ESPN 980 and has apparently put himself in position to influence different employees in the past.
Cooley wasn't the only person criticizing Griffin. Many were, but one other significant name in Washington stood out from the crowd.
Jason Reid, then of the Washington Post and now of ESPN, wrote back in November that head coach Jay Gruden should actively distance himself from Griffin. Reid wrote, "If it’s not already painfully apparent to Snyder and Allen that Griffin is broken and won’t be fixed in Washington, Gruden needs to convince them."
Gruden didn't take that unsolicited advice. In fact, he did the exact opposite.
In February, during his first public comments of the offseason, Gruden emphatically backed Griffin as the starting quarterback for his team. He wasn't guaranteed the spot for the full season, but he would be the starter entering Week 1:
""Robert ended the season as the starter and we anticipate that moving forward," Gruden said Wednesday at the NFL Scouting Combine. ...We'll go into the season with Robert as the No. 1 guy obviously, and it's up to Robert to continue to grow and mature as a quarterback and a person and moving forward, we just want to see some improvement. That's up to us as a staff to get more out of him."
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Improvement is important for Griffin. He hasn't been a good quarterback since his rookie season for a variety of reasons. Those reasons are key to understanding why Gruden is willing to stick with him as his starting quarterback.
Reid wrote in his column that the franchise "can’t afford to risk wasting more time on a player who, in less than three seasons, appears to have forgotten everything he has learned about playing the game’s most important position."
Pay attention to that wording.
It suggests Griffin forgot how to do what he did during his rookie season as a starter in 2014. For the most part, that is false. Griffin excelled as a rookie because he was able to perfectly execute Kyle Shanahan's offensive scheme.
Shanahan didn't ask Griffin to drop back in a traditional pocket and make deep progression reads downfield while mitigating pressure in the pocket. Instead, he relied heavily on play action and Griffin's athleticism to affect the pass rush and coverage.
By doing this, Shanahan created easier decisions for Griffin and simplified the whole offense. Over the first 12 weeks of the season, he was able to accumulate 2,497 passing yards, 16 touchdowns and four interceptions. That was Griffin at his peak, and it broke down like this:
| Week 1 | 30 | 12 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 320, 2, 0 |
| Week 2 | 32 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 206, 1, 1 |
| Week 3 | 43 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 221, 1, 0 |
| Week 4 | 40 | 11 | 5 | 0 | 7 | 323, 0, 0 |
| Week 5 | 18 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 91, 0, 0 |
| Week 6 | 26 | 11 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 182, 1, 1 |
| Week 7 | 34 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 258, 2, 1 |
| Week 8 | 36 | 11 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 177, 1, 0 |
| Week 9 | 51 | 13 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 215, 0, 0 |
| Week 11 | 22 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 200, 4, 0 |
| Week 12 | 31 | 10 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 304, 4, 1 |
| Total | 363 | 108 | 25 | 8 | 49 | 2497, 16, 4 |
*Week 10 bye for Washington.
As the chart shows, Shanahan's offense used play action or a rollout on 141 of Griffin's 363 dropbacks (38.8 percent) and threw a screen pass on 49 of those dropbacks (13.5 percent). These are simplifying plays for a quarterback. They ask him to account for less of the responsibility while creating easy offense through scheme rather than individual talent.
Of course, the negative side of this offensive scheme is the stress it put on Griffin to use his athleticism.
Griffin ultimately finished the season injured. It's unfair to directly point to Shanahan's scheme, but you can point to the coaching staff and franchise as a whole for not managing his health better late in the season. By tearing his ACL in the playoffs of his rookie season and coming back to start in Week 1 of his second season, Griffin clearly wasn't ready to play during his second year.
Further injuries felt inevitable, while his ability to execute even the simplest of plays in Shanahan's offense came under greater scrutiny.
A direct causation can be pointed to with Griffin's health in 2013 and his poor play compared to his displays during the 2012 season. The 2013 season was arguably better than his 2014 season, though. In 2014, Griffin's dropped another rung or two.
Once more health was an issue. He suffered a significant ankle injury in Week 2 and wouldn't return until Week 9. However, health wasn't the primary problem. Instead, it was the shift in scheme. Gruden did excellent work helping Andy Dalton as the Cincinnati Bengals' offensive coordinator, but his offense asks more of its quarterback than Shanahan's did.
This is where Reid's wording sticks out. Griffin didn't forget everything he knew about the quarterback position in 2014; he was being asked to do things that he hadn't done under Shanahan or at Baylor.
Using the same criteria, this is how Griffin's snaps broke down during the 2014 season:
| Week 1 | 41 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 6 | 267, 0, 0 |
| Week 2 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 38, 0, 0 |
| Week 9 | 34 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 251, 1, 1 |
| Week 11 | 42 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 207, 1, 2 |
| Week 12 | 25 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 106, 0, 0 |
| Week 14 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 33, 0, 0 |
| Week 15 | 39 | 7 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 236, 1, 0 |
| Week 16 | 28 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 220, 0, 1 |
| Week 17 | 47 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 9 | 336, 1, 2 |
| Total | 265 | 38 | 21 | 0 | 34 | 1694, 4, 6 |
In Gruden's offense, Griffin was asked to use play action or play in a rolled pocket on 59 of his 265 dropbacks (22.3 percent). That number is almost half of what it was during the first 12 weeks of his rookie season.
Gruden asked Griffin to throw a screen pass on 34 of his 265 dropbacks (12.8 percent). That is close enough to Shanahan's rate (13.5 percent) but still lower and much more notable when viewed alongside the play-action numbers.
The differences between the two offenses are significant enough to stress different areas of Griffin's skill set. In Shanahan's offense, his skill set was perfectly consumed. In Gruden's, he had to do things on a consistent basis that he hadn't ever done on a consistent basis.
For that reason, Griffin was essentially playing like a rookie last year. Framing his season that way gives you a more rational evaluation of where he currently stands in his development.
Nobody will argue that Griffin was a good quarterback last year, but the negativity that has painted him as a player the team can't rely on is unfair. He struggled with his consistency rather than ability. Even though there were plenty of examples of atrocious play from the pocket, there were also plenty of positive plays.
First, to the negatives.
Play action has many effects on a defense. It slows pass rushes and distorts coverage. Distorting coverage was huge for Griffin during his best games. Shanahan's offense forced defensive backs and linebackers to be reactive rather than proactive.
Instead of sitting back to read the quarterback's eyes and break on the ball as it was thrown from the pocket, defenders had to focus more on re-establishing their positioning while trying to react to the actions of a moving quarterback.
On non-play-action plays, quarterbacks typically need to be more aware of what defenders are doing. This was a problem for Griffin.
This third-down play against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was a clear example of Griffin allowing the defense to deceive him. Because it is 3rd-and-6, the Buccaneers defense can be aggressive in its alignment. It shows a heavy blitz with six defenders pressing the offensive line at the line of scrimmage.
Further hinting that they are blitzing, the Buccaneers line up with press man across the board against the four receivers of Washington.
Griffin initially does the smart thing. He locates Pierre Garcon, who lined up at the bottom of the screen. Every single one of Washington's receivers is running s slant route, but Garcon is easily the best matchup in the best position to get open quickly.
It takes Garcon a moment to get off the press coverage, so Griffin must hold on to the ball for a split second.
While Griffin was watching Garcon, one of the two linebackers who threatened to blitz at the snap dropped into coverage. That linebacker read Griffin's eyes from the beginning of the play, and he followed them toward Garcon at this point of the play.
Griffin should recognize the free player in his peripheral vision and adjust to push the ball toward Andre Roberts, who is running free on a slant from the slot.
Instead of doing that, the quarterback had tunnel vision for Garcon. He didn't deviate from his pre-snap read and predetermined where he'd send the ball as soon as Garcon beat his man to the inside. The Buccaneers defense had trapped him.
The linebacker tipped the ball into the air in front of Garcon, and it went straight to the defender behind him for an interception.
Understanding how to read coverages is vital for any NFL quarterback. Griffin isn't an unintelligent quarterback. He has proved his ability to make the right reads after play action, and he has shown a willingness to work through his progressions from the pocket.
It was just his inconsistency that created so many problems last season. The negative side of that inconsistency was often on show for sacks.
While some of the individual plays suggested that the problem was much worse than it was, it was still true that Griffin was the primary reason for too many sacks in 2014. He should have prevented nine of the 33 sacks he suffered, while his offensive line was primarily at fault for 20 of them.
Griffin's process in the pocket needed to be faster at times, while he also needed to show patience. But some awful offensive line play exacerbated his struggles.
On this play against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Griffin will take the primary blame for the sack, but the play also highlights how little margin for error his offensive line gives him. Because it's 3rd-and-9, the Jaguars are being aggressive with their defense.
The Washington offense is responding to this aggression by bunching three receivers to the wider side of the field.
Focusing on the three receivers to the right side of the formation from the beginning of this play is smart. Griffin is more likely to get a quick throw against pocket pressure to this side of the field, while the wide receiver to the left isn't really in single coverage.
That is because the Jaguars have kept a single-high safety who is aligned directly across from the football. He is in position to help the right cornerback from the start of the play.
Griffin gets to the top of his drop and has a moment to look downfield, but he needs to get rid of the ball at that point. He can't hold it for a moment longer than he needs to because the pass protection can't hold up in front of him.
He could have delivered the ball to the receiver breaking outside—a potentially dangerous throw with pressure in his face. A safer throw would likely have been to push the ball down the seam. While there was a deep safety on the play, he was too far across the field to threaten this throw.
Instead, Griffin held the ball for a moment too long, and the edge pressure swallowed him.
There are worse plays than this one to highlight Griffin's poor play from the pocket, but that play shows what is his main problem. He needs to develop a comfortable process in the same way that 99 percent of rookie quarterbacks who enter the league do.
Obviously Gruden saw enough positive plays from Griffin to buy into him moving forward. It's easy to understand why because there were plenty of positive plays.
Quarterbacks who lack the mental acumen or comfort to move their eyes through different areas of the field are always going to be limited. Those who show enough signs of doing that at a young age offer optimism and potential for development.
One of Washington's biggest plays last season was a direct result of Griffin's ability to work through progressions and manipulate the defense.
Griffin caught the ball after lining up in shotgun. He looked to his right where he had a tight end breaking to the outside and a receiver running down the sideline. Griffin appears to be reading the outside cornerback, who carries the outside receiver before planting his foot to break on the tight end's route.
Although it's impossible to be certain, Griffin appears to read the movement of that cornerback to bring his eyes back to the other side of the field.
On the other side of the field, DeSean Jackson initially ran infield, but he is breaking back toward the other sideline as Griffin brings his eyes toward him. Meanwhile, Andre Roberts is breaking infield after initially running down the seam.
Griffin appears to read the other cornerback who is reacting to Jackson's route. He lingers on Jackson for a moment and makes a quick pump fake before bringing his eyes back to the middle of the field.
As the pressure arrives, Griffin delivers the football downfield. He throws the ball behind Roberts, forcing him to adjust to it in the air. However, Griffin did this purposely. He threw the ball to this spot because the deep safety was overplaying the inside.
By putting the ball where he did, Griffin led Roberts toward space. This took the safety completely out of the play, while the outside cornerback wasn't in position to affect Roberts because the previous pump fake had drawn him to Jackson.
Griffin's accuracy throwing the ball down the field was a staple of his success during his rookie season. He has the ability to throw precision passes that offer a high degree of difficulty downfield.
His problem since his rookie season has been mechanical. Injuries have seemingly made him tentative with his footwork, which is crucial for throwing the ball to any level of the defense, especially so for deep throws. When Griffin does plant his feet properly, he is one of the most accurate deep passers in the NFL.
Griffin can push the ball ahead of Jackson and place it in spots where only his receivers can catch it, but he also has the ability to throw with controlled touch and timing to breaking routes.
This play against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 16 of last season should have resulted in a first down. Roberts dropped the ball, but Griffin threw it perfectly. Maybe more significantly is where he threw the ball from.
Griffin located the right receiver to throw to while subtly stepping up in the pocket to negate impending pressure. He reset himself so the penetrating defender had to redirect, while not losing discipline in his mechanics.
He threw the ball with anticipation, placing it in a spot before the receiver broke outside, but he still needed to hold it in the pocket first. Having to hold on to the ball meant he delivered it just before an impending hit.
This was a phenomenal play from the pocket. There were a significant number of plays just like this one throughout the season. Maybe encouragingly, they seemed more prevalent as the year wore on.
At 25 years of age, it's way too early to give up on Robert Griffin III. He has done too many good things at this level to be cast off. He may never be a top-five player at his position—and those of us on the outside can't speak to his character—but all he needs is to show more consistency in the things he does well.
Griffin isn't broken. It's not like he is Chad Henne or Ryan Fitzpatrick or any other veteran quarterback who has proved himself completely incompetent. He's still too young and too talented to be written off. That talent extends to being a passer too, not just an athlete.
Washington needs to show patience and work with Griffin for this upcoming season. The franchise doesn't benefit at all from moving to Colt McCoy or Kirk Cousins.
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