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Redskins: Jay Gruden should be coaching for his job

By Desmond Lee

LANDOVER, MD - NOVEMBER 12: Head coach Jay Gruden of the Washington Redskins leaves the field after the Minnesota Vikings defeated the Washington Redskins 38-30 at FedExField on November 12, 2017 in Landover, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
LANDOVER, MD - NOVEMBER 12: Head coach Jay Gruden of the Washington Redskins leaves the field after the Minnesota Vikings defeated the Washington Redskins 38-30 at FedExField on November 12, 2017 in Landover, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /
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NEW ORLEANS, LA – NOVEMBER 19: Head coach Jay Gruden of the Washington Redskins ooks on as his team takes on the New Orleans Saints during the first half at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on November 19, 2017 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
NEW ORLEANS, LA – NOVEMBER 19: Head coach Jay Gruden of the Washington Redskins ooks on as his team takes on the New Orleans Saints during the first half at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on November 19, 2017 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images) /

Gruden’s shortcomings were exposed on Thursday night.

Gruden’s theater of malaise and error was normally not a feature presentation in most of the Redskins games over the past two years. Like a latent cancer that runs undetected for a period of time, it instead slowly metastasized its way through the team until it struck with a vengeance on the Redskins’ prime time Thursday night tilt against the Cowboys.

On that Thursday, both teams shared an identical 5-6 record, but were traveling on sharply divergent journeys from that spot in the standings. The Redskins, on the one hand, headed into the stretch run by facing the league’s easiest schedule in the last five weeks of the season. The Cowboys, on the other hand, with Elliot serving his six game suspension, were begging the Redskins to fire one last bullet of mercy into a once-promising year that had completely unraveled in the prior three weeks.

Rather than willingly granting a suffering team’s last wish, the Redskins took it upon themselves to reverse their fortunes. Buoyed by a close, but hard fought win against the two-win Giants the week before, the team simply could not extend that momentum four days later against an opponent whose only real question this season was its draft standing next year.

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What the Redskins could not do was, as mentioned multiple times by Cris Collinsworth, to allow some play to give the Cowboys any ray of hope of ending the worst three game losing streak in its franchise history. And that happened early on when Jamison Crowder let a pass skip through his hands and into the arms of Cowboys safety Jeff Heath. The interception not only turned the ball over to Dallas but cost the Redskins a goal-to-go at the three yard line, if not a score.

This would’ve staked the Redskins to an early lead at a time when their stifling defense was shutting down the Cowboys offense. And it was precisely the type of start that the Redskins could’ve used to summon doubt that haunted the Cowboys during a three game stretch where they could only score 22 points.

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