Washington Redskins: Should Jay Gruden Receive Contract Extension?
After Jay Gruden went 4-12 in his debut season with the Washington Redskins, he’s won 17 games the past two seasons. Does he deserve an extension?
Jay Gruden was brought to the Washington Redskins to fix Robert Griffin III in January 2014. After three successful seasons mentoring Andy Dalton with the Cincinnati Bengals, Gruden appeared to be the right choice to replace Mike Shanahan as the Redskins head coach. After a disastrous rookie season where the Redskins won just four games and rotated quarterbacks on a weekly basis, Gruden settled in after naming Kirk Cousins his starting quarterback in August 2015.
With Cousins under center, the Redskins would go on to win the NFC East in 2015 and just missed a playoff spot in 2016. Gruden’s offensive scheme is a big reason for Washington’s success.
Now, after two consecutive winning seasons—something rare for this franchise—Gruden finds himself at a crossroads. He lost his offensive coordinator, Sean McVay, to the Los Angeles Rams, as McVay agreed to become their new head coach. And Gruden will be on his third defensive coordinator in four seasons after inheriting Jim Haslett in 2014. There are no more excuses.
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Gruden fired Joe Barry after the season and appeared to strike out on all of his top choices to replace Barry. He settled on promoting outside linebackers coach Greg Manusky. Manusky has experience, as he’s been a defensive coordinator for nine combined seasons with three different teams. But it wasn’t exactly an awe-inspiring hire around league circles.
Why couldn’t Gruden land someone like Gus Bradley or Wade Phillips? They had better options. If you had options, would you choose a place where you’d be this head coach’s third defensive coordinator and have no front-line talent on defense? Of course not.
So, in the name of continuity, should team president Bruce Allen or general manager Scot McCloughan hand Gruden a contract extension? Quite simply, no.
Gruden signed a five-year deal—unheard of at the time for a rookie head coach—in 2014 and has two years remaining on his deal. There’s no need to rush in extending him. The time to extend Gruden would be after the season if the team is happy with the progress he’s made. If he has another strong year, he’ll sign an extension. However, if the team struggles in 2017, the Redskins can allow Gruden to go into the final year of his deal.
The fanbase is panicking because McVay is gone, because Cousins is likely going to be franchised again and because star receivers Pierre Garcon and DeSean Jackson are going to test the free-agent market and could depart. You can’t react to fans and their displeasure. If the team has a plan, whether fans or other teams agree with them or not, they should stick with that plan.
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If most of Washington’s top weapons return in 2017, the team should field another strong offense. If they don’t return, Gruden may catch a break from his bosses. Gruden has done some terrific things in his three years in the nation’s capital. He quickly realized Griffin wasn’t the answer and he was proven right. His work with Cousins has been outstanding. With a good year in 2017, he’ll be rewarded. In the meantime, fans should relax and actually let the offseason begin.