Quote:
Originally Posted by NIBGoldenchild
What happened in the first game? Let me stop, I don't want to break the mental blocks you've put in place to help you forgot what happened on thanksgiving and the season he was having prior to his injury.
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In the first game there were busted coverages and CB's actually laying on the ground when the WR caught the ball. Griffin did what any NFL QB should do and found the wide open guy.
The real star in all of this isn't Morris, and it sure isn't Griffin... the real star is Shanahan and a system that puts pressure on the defense. It always has and the couple of new wrinkles he put in this season didn't change that.
It wasn't getting Griffin that got things going in DC. It was Shanahan being in his 3rd season and finally getting the OL blocking like he wanted and getting a RB that teams had to worry about. Getting Garcon didn't hurt either.
Yet the as always uninformed media (and redskin fans) thinks it was Griffin that did it. Talk about right time, right place. Add in that Griffin is a likeable enough fellow and smart enough to say the right things and they're ready to go ahead and stick him in the hall.
It is very difficult to stop the run game when you face a Shanahan (mike) offense and it opens things wide open for the QB. Shanahan turns out 1000 yard rushers like a pez dispenser Plus, he so controls what the QB can and can't do that it is little surprise that Griffin had so few turnovers.
It is the smart thing to do.
What all that means though is that it is the system that generated the wins and generated the opportunities that Griffin took advantage of. Most of his passes were throws that any QB could make.
Now Griffins legs were a difference maker, but his arm was not. As teams figured out what Washington was doing as the season went on, things started to change a lot for Griffin. His lack of accuracy was a lot more noticeable as teams took away the easy throws.
Lucky for Griffin, the media went so ga-ga over him that it didn't matter that it was Morris and that Shanahan system that was winning the games in the second half of the season. They still went nuts over Griffin and gave him rookie of the year. He shouldn't have even beat out Morris... much less Wilson and Luck.