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The Washington Redskins like to run the zone-read, but the ‘Skins will be without their franchise quarterback for most if not all of the offseason, and maybe longer than that. As a result, there’s a lot of talk regarding who might be able to step in and run those plays in the meantime. Backup Kirk Cousins has said he thinks he can manage it, and Pat White was signed to contribute in that area, too. Rex Grossman was brought back again, but he knows his limits when it comes to option-oriented offensive schemes.
Rex Grossman joined The Sports Fix on ESPN 980 in Washington, D.C., to discuss his place as a backup with the Redskins, the controversial scenario that resulted in Robert Griffin III suffering a major knee injury in a playoff loss to Seattle, his own inability to run the read-option, Griffin’s recovery, and what impresses him most about RG3.
On his situation in Washington :
“I really haven’t played a whole lot of football. … It’s been an odd journey, and … all I know is I’m just excited to be back in the organization. I love everybody that I’ll be working with, teammates and coaches and everybody. So it’s just all positive for me, and I just wanna go out there and do things right, help Robert and Kirk as much as I can and get better myself.”
On what he saw from the sideline when Robert Griffin III played hurt in the playoffs against Seattle:
“To me, it looked like the Cowboys game. I didn’t really see anything major until maybe that last run, where it was obvious that he was hurt. … At that point, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s different than the Eagles game or the Cowboys game.’ So at that point, I don’t know if it was the next play or whatever, but it wasn’t too much after that that we stopped running those plays and then something happened.”
On his belief that nobody was at fault for Griffin being injured further as a result of the original knee injury:
“As a player, I would definitely not wanna get taken out in a playoff game, so I understand that. And from a coach’s perspective, it’s been a little odd three-week lead-up to that. Can he do it? Who knows? I don’t blame anybody for that situation at all. … It seems like it was a hyper-sensitive situation where you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
On not being equipped to run the read-option:
“Kyle Shanahan could not call that play without laughing while he called it for me. Whether Kirk could, we’ll see. But it takes some getting used to, and if they are gonna run it with Kirk, they’d definitely need to practice it a lot.”
On Griffin’s recovery:
“I know they’re not gonna play him unless he’s 100 percent, but from everything I’ve heard, it sounds like he will be.”
On what impresses him most about Griffin:
“It’s the total sum of how good he is. Just from Day 1 of OTAs, where it didn’t look like he could take a drop to save his life, he was kind of sideways and backpedaling. … As soon as you think he can’t do something, he turns it into his best attribute. And that’s a testament to him and the coaches and everybody — the fact that he can make something that he’s not very good at one of his strengths.”
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