THE SPORTS FIX
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11-25-14 ESPN's Trent Dilfer (19:44)
Some excerpts:
Back in September, ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer said that Robert Griffin III’s development as a pocket passer was his No. 1 storyline in the NFL this season.
“[If] he doesn’t develop this year, and if he doesn’t buy in, and if it is like pulling teeth to get him to play the way they need him to play to win, then you have to start talking bust,” Dilfer told Colin Cowherd after the Redskins’ Week 1 loss to Houston. “But if he does evolve, and if he does buy in to a system playing football that emphasizes his unique talents, which he has, but he lets all of those talents come out and he trusts that over a few years he’ll grow more comfortable in the pocket, now we can be talking about a perennial Pro Bowler. I don’t think there’s anything in between. I think it’s high ceiling, low floor with RGIII.”
With Griffin’s career path continuing to inch closer to the floor, Dilfer joined ESPN 980′s The Sports Fix with Kevin Sheehan and Thom Loverro on Tuesday to discuss the Redskins quarterback.
Dilfer called Kyle Shanahan “one of the most brilliant football minds” in the league and said Griffin would be more successful running the offense he did in his rookie year, but he also didn’t rule out Griffin eventually finding success as a pocket passer in Jay Gruden’s offense, without the increased risk of shortening his career.
“There’s no reason why a guy with Robert’s talent and his mind can’t learn all the things you need to learn to be a pocket passer,” Dilfer said. “But it takes a ton of work. It takes a ton of buying in. It takes a lot of lonely moments in the offseason when you could be flying around in private jets and doing fun things. It means doing boring things, and hard things that no one’s going to pat you on the back for. And that’s where this conversation needs to go.”
Dilfer talked a lot about the importance of Griffin “buying in” and putting in time during the offseason, and he said the Redskins should invest everything in developing Griffin as long as he continues to do so. Dilfer also made it clear that if he owned the Redskins, Griffin would be the starting quarterback for the rest of the season.
“If you’re an owner and I drafted him and I plan on keeping him, I’m telling my coach, ‘Play him, develop him,’” Dilfer said. “So I don’t blame Dan [Snyder] if he’s doing that. My point is this: If you guys care about being 6-10 at the end of the year, 7-9, making a real run at 7-9, or do you care about getting the most out of a guy that could possibly be your franchise quarterback?”
Dilfer’s ESPN colleague and fellow Super Bowl-winning quarterback Steve Young recently said that he’d talked to coaches who said Griffin wasn’t putting in the time, but later backtracked on those comments. Dilfer suggested that Griffin’s best days could still be ahead of him.
“Kids do change,” Dilfer said. “What you are at 24 or 25 is very different from what you are at 27, 28, 29…. I think part of this [is] we might just be expecting too much from a young player too early, and especially with brokenness. He’s broken right now. When you go through this, it crushes your spirit. And when you’ve got to fight to dig yourself out of that hole that you put yourself in, to a certain degree, there’s a lot of growth that comes in. It would not surprise me if Robert goes somewhere else and is a star in this league because he figures it out, and somebody else has a little more patience with him.”
Former Steelers coach Bill Cowher also suggested that the Redskins exercise patience with Griffin during an interview with the Sports Junkies on 106.7 The Fan.
“I just know right now that I’ve seen this kid throw,” Cowher said Tuesday. “I think that he can be a quarterback in the National Football League.”
When asked what route the Redskins should take to move on from Griffin and improve next year — whether by taking a quarterback in the draft or addressing issues along the offensive line — Cowher cautioned against giving up on Griffin.
“The other element of this is, this is [Griffin’s] first year in the system,” Cowher said. “I would encourage them to be very careful about making a rash decision when you don’t have to. If you have this quarterback for another year, why are you going to get rid of him? Unless the dynamic is so damaged … give him a chance. The kid has been humbled. Give him a chance to come back into camp. Why get rid of the kid in the fourth year when you don’t have to? So, I would encourage them, next year, that if you want to make sure you cross that bridge and cut it off, so be it, but make sure you have a plan in place.”
I agree with you about 'reports' or stuff being crap from Shanahan
y defined in his critique of Robert's performance, he's not doing much of anything right .... bad footwork, improper drop back distances, not stepping up into the pocket, not seeing the field and open receivers, not reading coverages correctly, combined with poor accuracy. How do you fix all of that in game conditions? I don't think you can. Consequently, keeping him out there amidst that type of struggling can only lead to continuing embarrassment and confidence crushing failure, not to mention the frustration imposed on the rest of the team with some legit talent running open and waving their arms for the QB that can't find them
