With the recent announcement from Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden that Kirk Cousins would be the team's starter, the countdown clock for Robert Griffin III's departure officially began ticking. It seems both astonishing and completely in step that Griffin and the Redskins would find themselves in this position just three short years after the former's sensational rookie season. But this is the Redskins we are talking about, the epicenter of NFL dysfunction. If an unprecedented fall from grace was going to occur, it was going to be in D.C.
But how did it all go so wrong so quickly?
In avionics, there is a term known as the "cascading effect" which is used to describe the snowballing of problems and issues that lead to plane crashes. The same can be applied to Griffin's tenure in Washington. It wasn't just one thing; it was a whole bunch of them that added up over time to knock the Redskins back to square one as a franchise.
Much of Griffin's rookie year success was derived from the offensive system tailor made by the Shanahans to fit their quarterback's abilities. They knew he wasn't going to become a pocket-passer overnight, so they designed a scheme that would take advantage of his running ability and powerful arm.
The zone read forced teams to account for Griffin's legs on every play. This enabled Washington to simultaneously become one of the NFL's best play action and rushing teams while presenting Griffin with fairly simple reads. That year, Griffin ranked second in the NFL in passer rating on play action throws (121.2) and the Redskins finished first in rushing (169.3).
But, alas, it was not a sustainable model. Griffin suffered a knee injury in December of his rookie year against the Baltimore Ravens and was never quite the same. His knee then imploded against the Seattle Seahawks in the playoffs, a game in which he should have never been playing in, and he underwent extensive reconstructive surgery for the second time.
Griffin spent that offseason rehabbing his knee instead of adding nuances to his game. When he returned, he simply was not healthy enough to be an effective rusher and there's no doubt that the injury sapped some of his explosiveness (his rushing yards dropped from 815 in 2012 to 489 in 2013). As a result and at the request of RG's camp, the Skins moved away from the zone read. However, the Shanahans quickly realized that Griffin did not yet possess the necessary footwork and mechanics, internal clock or the quality decision making to be as successful in a more traditional QB role.
That's not to put all of the blame on Griffin. He may have made repeated faux pas in the media and been a bit too concerned with his brand rather than his football prowess, but Washington never consistently put him in a situation to succeed. Their offensive line surrendered the second most sacks (58) in the NFL last year and has ranked near the bottom in QB hits allowed since 2013. The accumulation of punishment and lack of time to throw takes its toll after a while.
In addition, Griffin was expected to bail out one of the NFL's most porous defenses every week. It's extremely difficult for a young quarterback not named Andrew Luck to drag a team that never ranked higher than 18th in overall defense to respectability. What was Griffin or Cousins or Colt McCoy supposed to do with a defense that surrendered the third-most points (27.4) per game in the league last year?
Beyond the on-field failures, the Redskins were slapped with a $36 million cap penalty from 2012-2013. While the validity of the penalty can still be debated, Washington deserves blame for putting themselves in that position. Combined with the "Game of Thrones" style king's ransom they surrendered to draft Griffin, the team was left with few viable routes to add talent to a roster sorely lacking in it.
Overall, the Redskins failed to surround Griffin with the necessary pieces to develop while Griffin himself overestimated his own abilities. That destructive combination led to a series of setbacks and pitfalls that compounded one another and resulted in the disarray the organization currently finds itself in. In essence, the Redskins wasted three first-round picks, a second-round pick, and millions and millions of dollars just so they could end up right back where they began: a bottom feeder without a franchise quarterback.
It's a sad story really.
