Let's face it, the Washington Redskins' carousel of QBs is a joke. RGIII cost them about 5,000 draft picks (you might want to check my numbers on that) and has looked terrible since his sophomore season. You have Kirk Cousins who looks like Joe Montana one week and Mark Sanchez, the Jets version, the next. And finally, Colt McCoy, a career backup whose most memorable moment in the NFL is getting destroyed by James Harrison.
Now, as for RGIII, remember when he was the guy? Yeah, not many people do. He was extremely hyped after his first season and then he suffered that terrible injury in the playoffs which has thrown his career off track. I decided to go and look back over that first season and realized all the hype was over some generally mediocre production. I know, I know...in no way is a 20:5 TD/interception ratio mediocre. However, when you count his 12 fumbles, he had a total of 17 turnovers on the season. Considering one of the biggest reasons people picked him as the ROY over Luck was that he only threw 5 interceptions, it was a surprise that the turnover difference wasn't all that large. Also, it's interesting to note 8 of those 20 touchdowns came in two games, and Matt Flynn has proven even terrible QBs can have big games. Now all of this isn't to say that RGIII was a terrible quarterback that first year. He was a rookie adjusting to the speed of the NFL so mistakes were made, but a majority of the time he was quite exciting to watch. At the same time, in no way was he as phenomenal as people made him out to be.
The point I am trying to make here is that RGIII hasn't really looked the part of quarterback of the future in Washington. However, if I were them I would let this season play out with him as my QB. This would allow them to gather a larger sample size in the new scheme to really see what he can do. What else are they gonna do, let Colt McCoy play? Wait, that's exactly what the fans want. That's ridiculous. I get that he came off the bench and beat Tennessee and then went into Dallas and beat them but, really, Colt McCoy? If you say that RGIII has looked terrible in the past then you don't want to see what this guy did in Cleveland. If anything I would be upset that Colt won those two games and ruined the chance of getting a higher draft pick. Anyways, haven't they been down this road before with a different backup QB? Remember week 3 when Kirk Cousins was the better QB for Jay Gruden's offensive system? We thought RGIII might not even get the chance to win the starting spot back and then by week 4, everyone was asking where Robert Griffin was. It just feels like we will see the same thing happen with Colt.
I have never understood why fans think that career backups can come in and consistently perform like a starter. If the guy had the talent to make it as a starter then someone somewhere probably would have seen it. Look at Josh McCown, everyone has known for years he is simply a backup caliber quarterback and that was fine, it worked. Then he had to go and perform well in Chicago for a stretch of games and suddenly everyone thinks that Tampa Bay won't be that bad this year because they finally have a decent quarterback. It's funny how these things turn out. The career backup is playing like a career backup? I know, shocking. People need to stop with the whole idea that they pay for tickets so they should get to decide who plays, blah, blah blah. Last I checked, most fans are not trained NFL talent scouts, therefore they should probably leave the personnel decisions to the professionals...
Which leads me to my point, if the fans weren't calling for RGIII's head, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Plain and simple, no matter how frustrating it is, you don't give away your entire future in draft picks for a guy just to bench him two games after coming off an injury; it just doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, the NFL is a "what have you done for me recently" league so for now Colt McCoy is the golden boy and RGIII is the ugly red-headed step sister.
Just remember Redskins fans, be careful what you wish for.
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