Redskins’ Mike Shanahan: “It Sounds Like We’ll Be Picking Robert Griffin.” by Diane Chesebrough

Seconds after he entered the room for his pre-draft press conference and without even the smallest ado, Washington Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan was asked THE question:

“So… who ya picking?”

“Well, if you guys are right, it sounds like we’ll be picking Robert Griffin, “Shanahan said. “I don’t know… it sounds like it.”

It was actually a bit surprising, knowing the type of person Shanahan is that he answered the question so quickly and specifically. Just because everyone knows it anyway doesn’t mean the coach would not “stick to the process.” But this was the first thing out of his mouth. He then went on to say, “We are very excited.”

The excitement was obvious and why not? It’s been so long since this team has had a prospect like Griffin. The coaching staff must be chafing at the bit to get him here to Ashburn. The coach was very complimentary of the young athlete.

“I just like the way [Griffin] handles himself,” Shanahan said when asked what he liked about the youngster. “He’s a guy that finished college in three-and-a-half years and came in out of high school in three-and-a-half years. He’s an over-achiever as a person. He’s got great parents; his work ethic is off-the-charts. I love the way he handles himself. Then there’s the football aspects. He’s got great speed, does a great job in the pocket and throwing the ball down the field, he doesn’t look at the rush.”

“He’s got all the attributes that you look for in a quarterback. I would be very happy if he’s on our football team. Nothing’s 100 percent yet, so I’ve got to say that it’s 99.99 percent.”

Griffin has said several times during recent interviews that he knows he must earn the job of starting quarterback from Rex Grossman who was recently re-signed to the team. That is a smart thing to say. The season could end up being more about his development than winning games, but he would have to be having severe problems getting the playbook down or have suffered some unforeseen injury to not start come September. Shanahan was asked how quickly he thought a rookie could become a starter.

“You’ve got to make sure he’s ready to play,” the coach said.” You’ve got to go through the process. You don’t want to just throw a guy in there right away until he feels comfortable. There’s a growing process. Obviously, when you give up a couple of firsts and a second, you want the guy to get in there as quick as possible. But you want to do it at the right time and make sure he’s ready and that [having him starting] gives you the best chance to help you win. So we’ll evaluate him as time goes on… we’ll try to make the decision that is best for us and also best for him.”

There is some concern that Shanahan and offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan will force Griffin into their offensive system without regard to his strengths as many people insist they did to Donovan McNabb. But the head coach is too smart to do that. While there isn’t a good explanation of why he and his son would do it to McNabb but not Griffin, he said today (in a rather round-about way) that they would work to Griffins strengths.

“You have to incorporate your offense into the [player’s] skill-set,” Shanahan said. “I’ve been in the league for 27 years and had seven different quarterbacks. Every quarterback that I have dealt with is different. When I first got with John Elway my first four years, it was a Dallas Cowboys-type of system because Dan Reeves came from there. When I went to San Francisco with Steve Young, it was a West Coast offense with a 3- and 5-step drop. But we kind of incorporated different personnel groups and a few different formations that Steve really enjoyed. And when I came back to Denver with Elway again for four years, we changed the offense from a Dallas one to a combination of what John wanted to do with the shotgun because he loved the shotgun but did not like the 3- and 5-step drop.  He liked throwing out of the shotgun and moving out of the shotgun. So that offense was a little bit different for the next four years.

“Brian Griese was completely different,” the coach continued. “Brian Griese was a guy that we took formations and changed them up each week. One of the sharpest guys mentally I’ve ever been around. You can change things up just like that <snapping> with formations and you didn’t have much of a roll-out package because Brian wasn’t the fastest guy. But you could put a lot of pressure on him with formations and he did a great job in the four years that he was a starter.

“And Jake Plummer… he was a guy that came in and he could throw great with the roll-outs and the bootlegs and the quarterback keeps. And our offense was really orchestrated just hit that area because Jake was great at it.  He went from winning 36 percent of his games in Arizona to 72 percent in Denver, just dealing with the types of scheme we thought fit him best.

“And Cutler was a guy who could really do everything. And we were more in a position to win everything with Jay because you could spread the offense out.  You could drop back and throw it or you could throw it on the run.

“So it really had to do with your personnel,” Shanahan said in closing. “But we went from leading the NFL in sacks almost a year before to having 11 sacks in over 600 attempts in the last year. Cutler was great on offense just because of his ability to dump the football off in various situations.  You’ve got to look at who your quarterback is, what your supporting cast is and give that quarterback the best chance to win.”

I have a feeling that Shanahan will be successful in figuring out how to help “RGIII” win. One of the things that Shanahan said that makes last year’s draft even more impressive in hindsight is that, in order for a young quarterback to be successful in the NFL, a team must have a good defense.

“If you can take some of the pressure off of that quarterback with a great defense, a good running game, and a good play-action game, obviously the success rate skyrockets.”

If that’s the case, there’s eight wins right there because the Redskins’ defense is pretty good. Think about it, a really good defense AND one of the best young quarterbacks to come out of the draft in 20 years. This is going to be a really fun season in the District, Maryland and Virginia.

Hail!