ANALYSIS/OPINION:
HOUSTON — The statue built for Robert Griffin III is 200 miles away from NRG Stadium in Houston, in Waco, Texas, at Baylor University.
The street named Robert Griffin III is 185 miles from the stadium, in his hometown of Copperas Cove.
They might as well be on another planet right now.
No one builds statues for quarterbacks who dink, dunk and dribble their way to the most unimpressive 29 for 37 day passing for 267 yards (maybe 100 more, if we measured the horizontal distance) you may ever see. No one names streets for quarterbacks who led their offense to just six points.
No one remembers quarterbacks who had the day that Griffin had Sunday in a 17-6 opening season loss to the Houston Texans.
SEE ALSO: Jay Gruden ‘sick’ over losing Redskins debut
SuperBob? You don’t get a nickname playing quarterback like Griffin did Sunday — unless that nickname is “Who?”
The Redskins’ offense for much of the game was reminiscent of the Joe Gibbs-Mark Brunell sideline-to-sideline offense. You run those kind of plays when your wide receivers are Rod Gardner and Taylor Jacobs — not Pierre Garcon and DeSean Jackson.
Granted, a force of nature by the name of Houston defensive end J.J. Watt influenced the Redskins’ ability to even attempt an explosive offense. But new Redskins coach Jay Gruden’s mantra to his quarterback to “manage the game” took on the scent of fearing to fail Sunday — the same scent that plagued the offense through the preseason.
Is this what it has come to for Griffin — not losing the game instead of trying to win it? One of the problems in Griffin’s so-called development is his mentality of trying to win the game on every play.
Well, they drummed that out of him.
“The first three drives were not very good,” Gruden said. “Then we started to move the ball, but we just couldn’t finish it.”
SEE ALSO: J.J. Watt dominates Redskins in all facets of season-opening win
These were the themes of the postgame comments by both Gruden and Griffin — missed opportunities, a few plays here and there.
“There were a lot of things that are correctable,” Gruden said.
Operation Correctable.
“It’s a work in progress,” Gruden said.
Maybe it is. Maybe this is all part of the process of the growth of Griffin. He seems to be buying into that notion. There were no proclamations of going back to what made him successful, or questions about the play-calling. Griffin took the bulk of the blame for the offensive struggles.
“To be the offense that we have to be, that’s up to me,” he said. “I have to play better for us to win football games.”
It sure doesn’t feel like a process, though. It feels like an exercise in futility.
To hang this game on the turnovers — the blocked Tress Way punt by the Texans with less than two minutes left in the first, the Niles Paul fumble after the 48-yard completion halfway through the third quarter — is to pay attention to the numbers and not the performance.
“[Griffin] did some good things,” Gruden said. “But when you’re a quarterback in a loss, you’re not going to get a very good grade. The quarterback is responsible for getting us in the end zone and we only had six points. … I think it is a good start for him, a good building block moving forward to Jacksonville [next week’s opponent].”
But the quarterback isn’t playing as if he is building something. It looks more like a demolition project.
Something is missing. The confidence that with Griffin they always have a chance to win has been replaced by a fear that the quarterback — who was passed over as offensive team captain before the game in favor of left tackle Trent Williams — will get sacked, or fumble, or throw an interception.
Griffin told reporters this week that after a disappointing performance by the first team offense in the preseason, “We fixed what we needed to fix.”
When I asked him after the game if he felt they fixed what they needed to fix, Griffin replied, “It’s a constant process of trying to hammer in the details and fixing what you need to fix moving forward to the next week. And we’ll fix the turnovers that we had today. It starts with me, and I’ll make sure that happens.”
But what if what is broken may not be, as Jay Gruden likes to say, “correctable?”
Where did SuperBob go?
• Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 radio and espn980.com.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.