When Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden uttered the words, "It's Kirk's team," as part of his Monday press conference announcing that Kirk Cousins, not Robert Griffin III would take the helm of the Washington offense for the duration of the 2015 NFL season, he may have been saying much, much more than was immediately apparent. In recent weeks, rumors and reports of RGIII's standing in Redskins have swirled, with some stating that Griffin's relationship with Gruden was deteriorating and yet others suggesting that the Redskins offensive lineman simply don't like Griffin. While each report is damning in its own way, what may potentially be the most appalling aspect of all of them is this - Gruden and the coaching staff are the source from which most, if not necessarily all, of the rumors initially emerged, according to Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report.
Freeman indicates that he's heard from "a number of team sources around the league" that Gruden and/or "someone on his staff" are behind the leaks. ESPN's Dianna Marie Russini and Adam Schefter released a report on Sunday detailing the supposed in-fighting going on between the Redskins coaching staff and ownership over Griffin's spot in the lineup. Per Russini and Schefter, "high-ranking" Redskins front-office officials and coaches want to "part ways" with RGIII, while ownership has offered resistance to that notion to this point.
There seemed to be something of punctuation mark tacked onto this whole mess on Monday when Gruden announced at his press conference that Cousins would be taking over because he gives the team the "best chance to win."
"When it's all said and done, after all the film we've gone through, after all the offseason activity, all the training camp footage, we feel like at this time, Kirk Cousins gives us the best chance to win and that's where we're going," Gruden said, via NFL.com. "It's Kirk's team."
According to Freeman, sources suggest that Washington will cut Griffin at some point, rather than risk the $16 million in salary he would be guaranteed were he to suffer an injury prior to or during next season. And sadly, another team executive who has spoken to the Redskins about trading for Griffin, indicated that the embattled quarterback, once the prized acquisition in a trade that involved three first-round picks, can now be had for the low-low price of "a fifth- or sixth-round pick."
