Jay Gruden’s path to becoming an NFL head coach was winding and circuitous and, ultimately, paved with success at every turn.
Before joining the Washington Redskins, Gruden won everywhere he coached, from his days as offensive coordinator with the Cincinnati Bengals to his time in the Arena Football League with the Orlando Predators. In his 22 seasons of coaching, his teams have made the playoffs 18 times. They have finished .500 or better 19 times. Before this season, he had a 98-65 career record as a head coach across three professional leagues.
So as Gruden paused at his press conference on a rainy Monday afternoon at Redskins Park, struggling to remember whether his woebegone team has five losses or six, it was once again clear that he is in unfamiliar territory. Only once before in his coaching career has he been a part of a 1-5 start: in 2004, when he was an offensive assistant under his brother, Jon, in Tampa Bay.
Gruden is a first-year NFL head coach who has little experience with coaching failure. And now he is tasked with guiding a group that knows the feeling all too well, changing the culture of a team that has now lost 13 of its last 14 regular-season games.
“There’s great challenges every week, not just physically but mentally,” Gruden said. “Trying to get these guys out of a rut, trying to get these guys to a consistent approach where winning is the norm, not the abnorm. But we have to go out and do it. We have to coach better and we have to play better in order to do that and understand that each week is going to be a great challenge.”
Shortly after his press conference ended, Gruden held a meeting with other members of his coaching staff to examine the first six weeks of the season, what went wrong and what could be done to fix it. He said he would consider altering how the Redskins practice, when they practice, how they organize team meetings, what plays are called in what situations, and everything in between.
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“We have to do something a little bit different,” Gruden said. “Obviously, status quo is not doing so well.”
After Sunday’s 30-20 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, Gruden circled the visiting locker room and spoke to his players individually, offering words of encouragement to each. He believes Washington has enough talent on the roster to win and said he is not considering a major personnel moves, not that such an overhaul would be possible anyway.
“You can’t just pluck somebody off the street and say, ’You go in there and start,’” he said.
The struggles, in Gruden’s eyes, are widespread but identifiable. The Redskins have been ineffective on third downs and unable to run the ball in recent weeks. They have communication lapses on defense, resulting in coverage breakdowns or big plays.
Sometimes, Gruden said, the coaches are at fault. In other instances, it comes down to one or two players failing to execute.
“There are some instances where we work specifically on a look and we get that look in the game and we don’t get the results that we should get,” Gruden said. “So some of that the players have to take accountability. Some of it — bad play design or bad defensive design, bad special teams design — the coaches will take responsibility. It’s a little bit of both, to be quite honest with you. I’m not going to sit here and blame the players for poor execution, and I don’t think the players can stand up and say it’s the coaches for poor game planning.”
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At least publicly, the Redskins haven’t done that. They seem to understand the shared responsibility. Players haven’t openly criticized the coaching staff, and some, like quarterback Kirk Cousins, have publicly praised it.
“I feel like Jay and [offensive coordinator] Sean [McVay] have done a very good job of preparing us,” Cousins said Sunday night. “I think playcalling-wise, they’ve done an outstanding job. That’s why it’s frustrating. You feel like you’re letting them down because I do feel like they’re doing a great job of scheming and preparing us, and it’s just not showing in the win column.”
Gruden, however, knows that he will ultimately be judged by wins and losses. His team’s struggles, and his staff’s struggles, are his struggles.
It is now up to Gruden, a rookie coach who has barely encountered failure while wearing a headset, to diagnose that failure and fix it. He has the next 11 weeks to do just that. It’s a tough job, but it’s what he signed up for.
“Every job is tough in the NFL,” Gruden said. “It’s not easy for the 5-1 teams. It’s not easy for the 1-5 teams. But we knew that going in. It’s a great challenge every week.”
• Tom Schad can be reached at tschad@washingtontimes.com.
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