Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III returned to a limited practice yesterday, and had “a little bounce to his step.”
Maybe that’s because he knows he has job security.
According to Mike Jones of the Washington Post, Coach Jay Gruden cleared up what should have been obvious, saying that whenever Griffin is recovered from a dislocated left ankle, that he would resume as the starter.
When asked right after the injury if Griffin was assured the starting job when he came back, Gruden said only: “We’ll cross that bridge when it comes.”
But then Kirk Cousins started to stink up the joint (nine turnovers in four starts), and suddenly there was clarity about RG3’s place in the pecking order.
“He’s got to get cleared first, then we’ll have to have a plan. Once they say he’s healthy and he practices with us and we feel like he’s ready to go mentally and we have a good game plan for him, then he’ll be the starter,” Gruden said. “But I don’t know when that will be yet. That’s hard for me to project. Could be one week, two weeks. Could be five weeks. I don’t know yet.
“He looks good so far, he’s making good progress, as we knew he would, the type of worker he is. But making progress in the training room and making progress on the practice field are two entirely different things and we just got to make sure he’s right both mentally and physically before he gets back out on the field.”
Again, Cousins sort of made this an easy call for them, but until he’s back and looking like himself, it’s impossible to know how long-term an assignment it will be.
