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Washington Redskins NFL Draft play: Jay Gruden’s last stand

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The Washington Redskins head into the 2015 NFL Draft with a franchise quarterback who may be washed up and second year head coach who may be heading into his last season. It’s a sign of just how much chaos there is surrounding the franchise, with Jay Gruden already embattled after a tumultuous first year, and Robert Griffin III already washed up in the eyes of some fans. So how do the Redskins use the 2015 Draft to turn things around?

First, scratch off any notion of selecting Marcus Mariota as a replacement, as he’s already been selected by the Titans. There are no other first round caliber quarterbacks left on the board, so go ahead and pencil in RG3 as the starting QB for the 2015 season. The silver lining is that the Washington Redskins at least have the choice of either giving Griffin an upgraded weapon or trying to bolster their defense in the first round, as they’ll have multiple top flight players available on both sides of the ball. So just who will they pick?

That will largely come down to which players fall to Washington Redskins. The Jaguars, for instance, could take the likes of Amari Cooper or Leonard Williams. That means the Skins will end up getting essentially the consolation prize that the teams directly ahead of them didn’t take. And Gruden will just have to hope it’s enough.

Washington Redskins 2015 offseason: surviving Robert Griffin III

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The Washington Redskins head into the 2015 NFL Draft with serious questions at quarterback, centered mainly around whether franchise QB Robert Griffin III will ever be able to return to the heights he performed at during his rookie season before an injury transformed him into a different player. And there’s friction between RG3 and head coach Jay Gruden which won’t magically go away during the next season. So just what do the Redskins to in the first round of the draft?

The Washington Redskins could try to make a move up to take Marcus Mariota, which would give the team a fresh start at the quarterback position. But at this point it’s unlikely they’d be able to find a trade partner to take Robert Griffin off their hands for anything substantial in return, meaning they’d essentially be dumping his salary in exchange for a throwaway low draft pick. The catch: the Skins have far too many holes at various spots on their roster to be spending another first round pick on a QB so soon.

The sad reality is that the Washington Redskins probably won’t be a playoff team in 2015 no matter who their starting quarterback is. That means that Jay Gruden is best off giving RG3 one more season to get it together, boosting the rest of the roster in the draft, and finding a new quarterback next offseason if the need ends up being there.

Washington Redskins: RG3’s final shot in the NFC East in 2015

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The Washington Redskins enter 2015 with a franchise quarterback who has fallen as precipitously as any young promising QB ever has in the NFL. But the team isn’t ready to give up on Robert Griffin III, and now he must find a way to ensure that his fourth season in the nation’s capital ends up being a proper third act - and this comes even as the rest of the NFC East is making noise all around RG3’s attempted rebound season.

Robert Griffin had a solid rookie season and led the Washington Redskins into the playoffs, but he sustained an injury in that game from which he has never fully recovered. He spent much of his second season playing with a boot, eliminating his mobility and forcing him to play a different game of football than he had ever previously been accustomed to. There was also a clash with his head coach Mike Shanahan, who ended up being fired. But things didn’t go more smoothly with new head coach Jay Gruden, and two other quarterbacks started games in 2014 while RG3 rode the pine.

Now Gruden will attempt to finally get on the same page with his star quarterback, with each of them facing potential exile at the end of the 2015 season if they can’t come together to show progress over last year’s failed campaign. For Griffin, he must figure out how to improve his pocket presence even when defenses know he’s not going to take off running. For Gruden, he must hope that the rise of the Cowboys and the reshuffling of the Eagles doesn’t end up making any Redskins advances in 2015 a moot point.