Robert Griffin III will have a cast put on his dislocated ankle but it remains unclear how long the quarterback will be sidelined, coach Jay Gruden said Monday.
“We’ll know in a few more weeks how long he’ll be out,” Gruden said.
Gruden said Griffin did not suffer any fractures or ligament damage and he would not be put on season-ending injured reserve, but the coach did not offer any estimate for a potential return.
“I think it’s too early to tell, as far as a timetable is concerned,” Gruden said. “All’s we know is it’s not a fracture. We’re going to put the cast on it for a couple weeks and get more results to Dr. [Robert] Anderson and see what he says and go from there.”
Gruden said he does believe Griffin will be back this season.
Also Monday, Gruden reiterated that wide receiver DeSean Jackson is considered day-to-day after spraining the AC joint in his shoulder Sunday. The Redskins face Jackson’s former team, the Eagles, in Philadelphia this weekend.
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“It depends on if he can play with the pain, he’ll be good for Sunday,” Gruden said of Jackson. “But I think we’ll have a better idea probably Thursday or Friday of where he is.”
Griffin left the Redskins’ home opener Sunday, a 41-10 victory over Jacksonville, with what was originally termed a dislocated left ankle. He played only nine snaps, leaving the game just over five minutes into the first quarter.
Kirk Cousins, who entered after Griffin left the game, will take over as the starting quarterback.
The injury is the fourth that Griffin has sustained in his three seasons with the Redskins, though it was the first since his rookie year. He sustained a concussion, sprained the LCL in his right knee, and then had greater LCL and ACL damage in Washington’s playoff game that required surgery.
“You’re sick about it because you spent so much time with Robert getting ready,” Gruden said. “You hate for something like this to happen to somebody.”
The concern regarding Griffin’s health dampened a victory that snapped a nine-game losing streak, was the first for Gruden as the team’s coach and marked the greatest scoring margin since 2005.
After faking the handoff to running back Roy Helu with 9:47 left in the first quarter, Griffin rolled out to the right, discarding an attempt at a tackle by Jaguars middle linebacker Paul Posluszny before spotting wide receiver DeSean Jackson open 19 yards downfield.
With outside linebacker LaRoy Reynolds bearing down at the line of scrimmage, Griffin planted on his left leg and muscled a throw across his body to Jackson. His cleat got caught in the grass, and after taking an exaggerated, painful hop off his right foot, he fell to the ground just out of bounds, where he lay splayed out on the sideline until the team’s athletic trainers and medical staff helped him onto a cart and drove him to the locker room.
Cousins then entered the game and completed 22 of 33 passes for 250 yards and two touchdowns, the first of which was a 20-yard throw to fullback Darrel Young two plays after Griffin was injured.
A fourth-round pick out of Michigan State in 2012, when Griffin was drafted with the No. 2 overall pick, Cousins has played in nine games for the Redskins, making five starts.
“We have a number of plays Kirk’s very comfortable with, and we don’t have to make a whole lot of wholesale changes with Kirk in there,” Gruden said. “It might just be a package of plays we don’t run, but even some of those plays are good on occasion with Kirk. Kirk can do everything.”
His backup will be Colt McCoy, a fifth-year veteran who started 21 games for Cleveland in 2010 and 2011 and was signed by the Redskins in April.
• Zac Boyer can be reached at zboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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