The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

Mike S commenting on Griffin:

1. Injuries aren't reason Griffin is the way he is now.

2. Didn't have a route tree or a playbook in college.

3. Doesn't put in the work necessary to succeed in the NFL.

Self serving article that does have the ring of truth.

http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/mike-shanahan-rgiii-s-struggles-can-t-be-blamed-on-injuries-052215

Oldschool, I think those quotes are from a Shanahan radio interview from months ago, and if it is they have been placed out of context, which doesnt surprise me coming from Fox.

When he spoke about Griffin "not putting in the work" he was referring to Griffin spending too much time in the weight room and not enough time in the film room. He said that Griffin always put in a lot of time, just not doing the right thing. Honestly to me that is just as much a coaccoaching thing. Griffin was taught to train that way because you can win athletically in college, to Griffins fault, he was cocky and thought he still could do that in the NFL. His coaches should of fixed that, the kid is in the building, make him spend it the right way. Griffin finally admitted this offseason that he did indeed spend too much time working out and not near enough on film and drills, and that he was going to do it right this year. Failure has humbled him, which is exactly what he needed.

The fact that he didnt have a route tree or a playbook in college actually proves the point you usually try to make about Griffin to be false. You usually say he isnt capable of reading defenses and progressing through his routes. That it is either something you have, or you dont. That is 100% false. He didnt have to do it in college, so he never learned how. Shanahan knew that and built an offense that was simple and didn't require Griffin to do those things, then add in Griffins ego and no coach strong enough to break it, and here you are today, a 4th year QB that hasnt progressed. That is FAR from him not being able to do so

Now enter Gruden. Gruden broke Griffins ego, he benched him, he publically humiliated him, and im sure broke him down behind the scenes in ways we dont know. Now look at Griffins attitude, he wants to learn the system, he admits and knows he needs to work on his footwork, he knows he has to act and represent himself differently. A lot of people think Gruden didnt know what he was doing with the QB swapping last year. I think it was planned to an extent. He saw how Griffin was, and kmew he had to be broken, so he took the kid gloves off, stopped treating him like something special, and just crushed him. Griffin will be a better player for it.

I believe this year we will see the player we drafted start to emerge. He knows his role now, and has a staff around him to get it out of him, and a growing talent of players to support him.

Ill be saying I told you so in December.

...and more importantly, who really cares what Shanahan has to say...he did NOTHING for us!

I agree, put Robert in a better situation, one like Wilson has in Seattle, and I feel comfortable he'll do well.

Griffin does need to learn from his mistakes and he does need to show that he's a good NFL QB

more importantly, the coaches need to have everyone around him playing better as a team - not going to matter much if everyone out there is not doing a much better job - the offense was not horrible because of Griffin's inability - this whole franchise was a mess

Mike did not do as good a job as he could have with Griffin and Griffin did not make the transition from college to the NFL as well as he could of


Griffin just needs to learn from what has happened - I don't believe he's broken or crushed at all - I think he's going to be a good NFL QB

Old school has a problem with Griffin. The sun also rises each day. The slant he puts on anything Griffin does, says or that is said about him is incredibly myopic. Even if (IF!) there is a point in there somewhere it gets lost among the anti Griffin bent. Mark my words, when Griffin does play well enough to make this entire debate about him moot, old school will resist giving him credit in every conceivable way: "Griffin finally stopped being selfish", "he just learned that the coach's way is the only way", "his receivers make him look good by catching his crappy throws", "this offense is watered down to fit griffin's ability". . . And so on.

emoses14 wrote:Old school has a problem with Griffin. The sun also rises each day. The slant he puts on anything Griffin does, says or that is said about him is incredibly myopic. Even if (IF!) there is a point in there somewhere it gets lost among the anti Griffin bent. Mark my words, when Griffin does play well enough to make this entire debate about him moot, old school will resist giving him credit in every conceivable way: "Griffin finally stopped being selfish", "he just learned that the coach's way is the only way", "his receivers make him look good by catching his crappy throws", "this offense is watered down to fit griffin's ability". . . And so on.

Emotes, if Robert learns how to function effectively in the pocket no one on this board will be happier than me because I'll be so surprised like Christmas in July surprised.

Prowl33 wrote:Oldschool, I think those quotes are from a Shanahan radio interview from months ago, and if it is they have been placed out of context, which doesnt surprise me coming from Fox.

When he spoke about Griffin "not putting in the work" he was referring to Griffin spending too much time in the weight room and not enough time in the film room. He said that Griffin always put in a lot of time, just not doing the right thing. Honestly to me that is just as much a coaccoaching thing. Griffin was taught to train that way because you can win athletically in college, to Griffins fault, he was cocky and thought he still could do that in the NFL. His coaches should of fixed that, the kid is in the building, make him spend it the right way. Griffin finally admitted this offseason that he did indeed spend too much time working out and not near enough on film and drills, and that he was going to do it right this year. Failure has humbled him, which is exactly what he needed.

The fact that he didnt have a route tree or a playbook in college actually proves the point you usually try to make about Griffin to be false. You usually say he isnt capable of reading defenses and progressing through his routes. That it is either something you have, or you dont. That is 100% false. He didnt have to do it in college, so he never learned how. Shanahan knew that and built an offense that was simple and didn't require Griffin to do those things, then add in Griffins ego and no coach strong enough to break it, and here you are today, a 4th year QB that hasnt progressed. That is FAR from him not being able to do so

Now enter Gruden. Gruden broke Griffins ego, he benched him, he publically humiliated him, and im sure broke him down behind the scenes in ways we dont know. Now look at Griffins attitude, he wants to learn the system, he admits and knows he needs to work on his footwork, he knows he has to act and represent himself differently. A lot of people think Gruden didnt know what he was doing with the QB swapping last year. I think it was planned to an extent. He saw how Griffin was, and kmew he had to be broken, so he took the kid gloves off, stopped treating him like something special, and just crushed him. Griffin will be a better player for it.

I believe this year we will see the player we drafted start to emerge. He knows his role now, and has a staff around him to get it out of him, and a growing talent of players to support him.

Ill be saying I told you so in December.

You trashed every rule logic in your post and are assuming Griffin has the spatial intelligence to learn how to process quick enough to play in the NFL at this point I am a skeptic I need to see it. I think 2015 Griffin is going to be like 2013-2014 Griffin with some RO thrown in so he can keep the sticks moving. I don't expect much progress but hopefully he stays healthy.

It actually makes perfect logical sense. You say he is not able to process through his progressions and read defenses.

When in fact, minus last year, he has never been asked to or taught to do so. I personally right now could not read an NFL defense while on the field and progress through a route tree. Am I capable of doing it? Who knows, if I spent 12+ years playing QB and a year or 2 in the nfl being taught how to do it, maybe I can, or maybe I cant.

The whole point is saying someone isnt capable of doing something that they were never taught to do, asked to do, and was even hesitent to learn before is just plain stupid. Now he wants to learn, he has his 2nd year in the system and has a QB coach to teach him how to operate within the system. Your point may have some validity at the end of the 2015 season... it has 0 validity right now.

Wrong, they tried to have him run an NFL offense during the first few games of 2012 without success again throughout all of 2013 and 2014. You can have your own opinion but your may not have you own set of facts.
Hopefully he astounds me and delights us all by showing some aptitude for it in 2015 but you're lying to yourself if you try to make yourself believe it's not his fourth bite at the apple.

You are wrong again. Shanahan even said it himself. He did not want to run Robert in a traditional system, they wanted to run him in the RO. The system was designed that way. They didnt start out with a pro offense, then thrthrow the whole thing away and do a RO one mid season. If you watch those earlier games they had a lot of RO in them. Plus 7 games as a rookie trying to read defenses for the first time, in a system not designed for it, and not being actually taught how to do it, would never work for anyone.

Last year was his first shot at it, but his ego, training regiment, and lack of a QB coach and decent o line all held him back.

All you are trying to do is position yourself to be right regardless of the outcome. Griffin may or may not be able to do it, no one knows because he has never given himself, nor has anyone else, given him the legit shot to do so, minus a few games at the end of last year.

Just a reminder to keep the discussion about the thread, not about the poster...

Carry on...

We don't know yet if RGIII can be a good qb on a good team...

We are just now coming out of the salary cap slamming we got from Mara...the bastard! While the cap hit ended a few years back, we redid deals during that period with some players that we're NOW finally out from under, e.g., Coefield and Bowen. We have not had the cap space to get quality backups -- NOR starters. Then last year we had injuries on defense that killed us.

I believe Shanahan is wrong, injuries have really hurt RGIII's progress. He had a ROY 2012...playoffs. He had major reconstructive knee surgery on both knees before year 2. IMO he should NOT have started Game 1 in 13. He was not ready. Who do we blame? Shanahan! Last year, he gets hurt in 2nd game...he is out for a number of games (I forget how many). He comes back early from a high ankle sprain, Gruden should have stayed with McCoy, RGIII was NOT ready again.

For 2014 -- A change of offensive systems, another injury to his legs, no qb coaching, bad Oline and an injury riddled bad defense doomed us.

A better Oline, a quality QB coach, 2nd year in same Offensive scheme, RGIII completely healthy, hopefully a healthy Defense -- no excuses.

Either RGIII has a good 2015 or we're winning 5-6 games maybe and we're picking around 10 in the 16 NFL Draft and hoping a top Qb falls to us.

Pretty simple really.

Wouldnt it be prudent to post the same tiresome Griff hate in ome thread?

Shanny also pointed out Elway and other legends whom went through the same growing pains.

With an improved line the new skillset being asked of RG will be easier to come by.. he will in turn build confidence and grow accordingly.

Rgiii is a RARE athletic talent, who will be successful once again, bank on it

Prowl33 wrote:Oldschool, I think those quotes are from a Shanahan radio interview from months ago, and if it is they have been placed out of context, which doesnt surprise me coming from Fox.

No those quotes were from a radio interview just last week. If you heard it, I actually thought Shanahan was both pretty honest and not overly harsh when it came to Griffin. Is there really much debate about these first two points?

1. Injuries aren't reason Griffin is the way he is now.
2. Didn't have a route tree or a playbook in college.
3. Doesn't put in the work necessary to succeed in the NFL.

I don't actually recall him saying #3 the way OldSchool is paraphrasing it. It was more along the lines of Griffin may have overestimated where he was as a QB, needs to really work at learning to play as a dropback QB.

He seemed to be pointing most of his criticism at Snyder. His opinion seemed to be that there were things he wanted to do with Griffin and Snyder got in the way of that. Any big surprise there?

Really wasn't much newsworthy in that article IMO. The radio interview was pretty good. He was very complimentary about what Gruden and SM have done so far, and he's still big on Cousins.

riggofan wrote:

Prowl33 wrote:Oldschool, I think those quotes are from a Shanahan radio interview from months ago, and if it is they have been placed out of context, which doesnt surprise me coming from Fox.

No those quotes were from a radio interview just last week. If you heard it, I actually thought Shanahan was both pretty honest and not overly harsh when it came to Griffin. Is there really much debate about these first two points?

1. Injuries aren't reason Griffin is the way he is now.
2. Didn't have a route tree or a playbook in college.
3. Doesn't put in the work necessary to succeed in the NFL.

I don't actually recall him saying #3 the way OldSchool is paraphrasing it. It was more along the lines of Griffin may have overestimated where he was as a QB, needs to really work at learning to play as a dropback QB.

He seemed to be pointing most of his criticism at Snyder. His opinion seemed to be that there were things he wanted to do with Griffin and Snyder got in the way of that. Any big surprise there?

Really wasn't much newsworthy in that article IMO. The radio interview was pretty good. He was very complimentary about what Gruden and SM have done so far, and he's still big on Cousins.

I paraphrased from the news article I read I didn't listen to the interview but he referenced Griffin needed to put in more time studying. Maybe he does now. It will the fourth season the Skins give him all the preseason starter reps maybe it sticks this year.

Why do so many people doubt RGIII's ability to read a D when he was so successful in the READ option. He had to make split second decisions on hand off vs keep & which hole to hit.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Common sense is uncommon these days..

Haterz gonna hate

OldSchool wrote:Wrong, they tried to have him run an NFL offense during the first few games of 2012 without success

Not sure what games you were watching, but the first play he ever ran was a read option run. We were running that "gimmick" offense from the get-go. It's not like they were, "Oh, he can't run a regular offense, we'd better install the read option quick if we want to have a chance."

At this point, I read whatever Shanahan says with a jaundiced eye. To say that injuries didn't contribute to his problems is ridiculous; it was clear in 2013 he didn't trust his knee enough even to plant to throw the ball right. And then by saying that, it's an attempt to remove the stigma that Shanahan's lack of leadership lead to the catastrophic injury in the playoff game. A true leader would have overruled his QB and pulled him out of the game.

OldSchool wrote:Wrong, they tried to have him run an NFL offense during the first few games of 2012 without success

What do you mean? He was on fire out the gates, with that insane game against the Saints where he mainly stayed in the pocket and competed passes at a high rate. It took until week 8 until he had his first game under 61% completion.

First 3 games were 4 TDs and 1 INT, 700+ yards passing. What do you qualify as success?

PulpExposure wrote:At this point, I read whatever Shanahan says with a jaundiced eye. To say that injuries didn't contribute to his problems is ridiculous; it was clear in 2013 he didn't trust his knee enough even to plant to throw the ball right. And then by saying that, it's an attempt to remove the stigma that Shanahan's lack of leadership lead to the catastrophic injury in the playoff game. A true leader would have overruled his QB and pulled him out of the game.

OldSchool wrote:Wrong, they tried to have him run an NFL offense during the first few games of 2012 without success

What do you mean? He was on fire out the gates, with that insane game against the Saints where he mainly stayed in the pocket and competed passes at a high rate. It took until week 8 until he had his first game under 61% completion.

First 3 games were 4 TDs and 1 INT, 700+ yards passing. What do you qualify as success?

Agree with both of your points in this post.

emoses14 wrote:Old school has a problem with Griffin. The sun also rises each day. The slant he puts on anything Griffin does, says or that is said about him is incredibly myopic. Even if (IF!) there is a point in there somewhere it gets lost among the anti Griffin bent. Mark my words, when Griffin does play well enough to make this entire debate about him moot, old school will resist giving him credit in every conceivable way: "Griffin finally stopped being selfish", "he just learned that the coach's way is the only way", "his receivers make him look good by catching his crappy throws", "this offense is watered down to fit griffin's ability". . . And so on.

That's how it works...his critics will try not to give him credit and his supporters will always find and excuse.....

yupchagee wrote:Why do so many people doubt RGIII's ability to read a D when he was so successful in the READ option. He had to make split second decisions on hand off vs keep & which hole to hit.

The read option is simple 1 route maybe 2 passing off of the run fake....you have to read the DE on the run and maybe a LB or safety off of the play action...

RG3peat wrote:

yupchagee wrote:Why do so many people doubt RGIII's ability to read a D when he was so successful in the READ option. He had to make split second decisions on hand off vs keep & which hole to hit.

The read option is simple 1 route maybe 2 passing off of the run fake....you have to read the DE on the run and maybe a LB or safety off of the play action...

Exactly... The decision is based primarily on what the OLB or DE is doing... Reading the defense, running through the receiver progressions, anticipating who will come open, finding the open receiver, understanding what the DB's are doing... Very different, very dynamic, often very nuanced... There is a LOT of thinking that must happen. A GOOD quarterback does most of it automatically, doesn't even know he's doing it. It takes a lot of repitition to get there.

Countertrey wrote:

RG3peat wrote:

yupchagee wrote:Why do so many people doubt RGIII's ability to read a D when he was so successful in the READ option. He had to make split second decisions on hand off vs keep & which hole to hit.

The read option is simple 1 route maybe 2 passing off of the run fake....you have to read the DE on the run and maybe a LB or safety off of the play action...

Exactly... The decision is based primarily on what the OLB or DE is doing... Reading the defense, running through the receiver progressions, anticipating who will come open, finding the open receiver, understanding what the DB's are doing... Very different, very dynamic, often very nuanced... There is a LOT of thinking that must happen. A GOOD quarterback does most of it automatically, doesn't even know he's doing it. It takes a lot of repitition to get there.

I think you are underestimating the RO. It's like finding someone who can't read Russian & saying he can 't read.

Becoming a good QB in the NFL is not easy no matter what offense you are running ...

Griffin is getting a chance to be the starting QB but he's got to show that he gives the offense the best chance to be successful and that he's the better NFL QB on the roster - the FO and coaching staff are rebuilding and looking to have a consistently competitive product on the field in the near future - while they are doing that they will be looking for players that can make the other players around them better

it's going to take more than this season and a lot of players are going to be gone because they don't suit what these guys want

Griffin has many attributes that should lead to his being a good NFL QB - he just needs to show that he can get it done

hopefully he's going to take advantage of this opportunity because the guys in charge here now seem to know what they're doing