How many more weeks is Jay Gruden going to be the head coach of the Washington Redskins? It’s looking less and less likely that he finishes the season. Washington hasn’t named a starting quarterback for their game against the Patriots. We may know why Jay Gruden is so hesitant to hand the keys to Dwayne Haskins. It’s because he never wanted him in the first place. YIKES.
The Washington Post has reported that Gruden and his staff did not want the team to draft Haskins. Owner Dan Snyder overruled everyone:
“Complicating matters is the lingering question, dating back to draft day, of whether Redskins Coach Jay Gruden viewed Haskins as the right choice for the team. Before Haskins was selected, ESPN reported that Washington’s coaching staff preferred a more experienced college player — like Duke’s Daniel Jones, who was selected sixth overall by the New York Giants — only to be overruled by owner Daniel Snyder.
A person with knowledge of Gruden’s thinking has confirmed that the head coach did not want Haskins, and while Haskins has publicly downplayed any suggestion that he wasn’t Gruden’s choice, a person close to the rookie quarterback said that Haskins has sensed that to be the case.”
Now we know why the Redskins have looked like such a mess. When the coach doesn’t like the quarterback and the team knows it, that stink lingers throughout the locker room. It’s hard to get a team to buy into that. It’s hard to put a gameplan together if the coach doesn’t believe in the quarterback. At this point, Gruden should have been fired the second he didn’t like Haskins. That was NEVER going to work.
His reasoning for not wanting Haskins really didn’t make sense. He called him a project for not having enough college starts. That’s fair. However, when you start to say you preferred Daniel Jones, that tells me you’re on crack. Daniel Jones threw for 52 touchdowns in 3 years at Duke. Haskins threw 50 in one year at Ohio State. All rookie quarterbacks are projects. They all need to be developed. Gruden should have been canned right after the draft.
Then again, it’s not great when Dan Snyder is meddling in personnel like this. Football guys are not running the football operation and it shows. I don’t see how the Redskins turn things around until Snyder sells the team.
