Is RG3 the Answer?

Kendall called me out on this once the trade went down and here I am to answer the bell.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with how terrible it is to be a Redskins fan here are the QB’s we’ve started in a game since I “came to” as a football fan:

Gus Frerotte

Brad Johnson

Tony Banks

Jeff George

Mark Brunell

Patrick Ramsey

Jason Campbell

Danny Wuerffel

Shane Matthews

Rex Grossman

John Beck

Tim Hasselbeck

Jeff Hostetler

Trent Green

Todd Collins

Donovan McNabb

That is 16 quarterbacks! And there are more of them if you count before I started watching when I was 7 years old. Obviously this has been a need since 1991 for the team, and most likely has been the downfall of most, if not all, of the coaches we have had in the past.


Obviously this trade for RG3 is a huge roll of the dice. Trading so much for a player who has not played a single down in the NFL seems insane. But when you start to feel your seat getting a little warm, as I’m sure the Shanahans are at this point, you need to take a huge risk. That being said, I am torn on this issue and I will try and explain why.

Bad Move:

To me, it REALLY looks like this is motivated solely on the thought process that this will buy the Shanahans a season or two since there will be “growing pains” with a new quarterback. That being said, we have the dumbest owner in sports, so there really is no reason to think that that has any validity as an argument, especially since Andy Dalton has had so much success as a less heralded draft choice. Hopefully they give Shanny more time to work to develop Griffin, because constant change has really handcuffed other QBs we’ve had (see: Jason Campbell.)


We also gave up a LOT. Especially for a team that really isn’t just a quarterback away from being good. I’ve spent a good portion of the last two seasons monitoring my blood pressure to make sure I’m not about to blow a blood vessel watching Rex Grossman try to thread a football into a three inch window, but clearly he is not the only issue. The offensive line depth is god awful, and other than Leonard Hankerson’s two good games I’m not sure we have a receiver who can do anything. Not having those draft picks are going to hurt but that’s okay because the Redskins can always…

Spend more money! Snyder has never, and will never, be a patient man. And I think this is going to drag us back into spend-money-on-older-players-to-win-now mode. I thought we were passed this with Bruce Allen so it will be interesting to see what happens when Snyder wants to spend, spend, spend. They need to control themselves and be patient and build this team up. Yes we don’t have first round picks for the next few years but we have plenty of dead weight on this team that might have some value that we could trade just to accumulate more draft picks. We have plenty of talented young guys but absolutely zero depth. If that gets addressed and we can manage to KEEP some of those players by not signing high priced guys every year, then we might be getting somewhere.

Good Move:

With all those negatives come some positives, too. While the price is high, the Shanahan offense thrives with a mobile quarterback that throws a beautiful deep ball. Griffin is that guy. He throws with more accuracy on passes over 20 yards than he does on short dump-offs. And he throws very accurately on the run. Watching John Beck and Rex Grossman attempt to perform rollout passes has been hilarious. If I see Griffin hit Santana Moss in stride on a play action rollout for a touchdown I will cry. Rollouts are a huge part of this offense and having a guy who excels with them will be great.

Also, we need this as a team. We really need this as a city. For Washingtonians, the most important man in the city is the Redskins QB. In all honesty most of us could care less who the president is, assuming he forms coherent sentences and doesn’t destroy the economy thus crushing the job market after we paid all this money for college... Sorry, I blacked out, back to football. The city needs someone to get excited about, someone to build around, and most importantly, someone to for us to say, “Well at least we have next year” when we are getting boat-raced by everyone on our schedule.

To sum it up, I think this is a HUGE gamble, but it will pay off. RG3 is perfect for the offense and most importantly a great face for a franchise. He also will be a big help in shedding the moron tag that players like Fred Davis and Trent Williams are slapping on us. I am very excited, and hopefully this won’t blow up in our faces... Although based on my luck, it probably will.