Redskins Reality Checks Week 12: Thanksgiving Day matchup provides Redskins unique opportunity

6. Reality Is, this is a unique opportunity for Jay Gruden.

Gruden’s teams have been severely injured the past two seasons. They have also held up admirably in the midst of the injuries. Last year, given all of the injuries, they just couldn’t keep up in a division dominated by the Eagles, but still ended up with a somewhat respectable record of 7-9.  This season, they have managed to put together a 6-4 record thus far, and have set themselves up for a run to the division title and a home playoff game. However, they have now lost their starting quarterback and are leaning on a backup, which commonly spells disaster for NFL teams.

But this is where the uniqueness of the opportunity comes in for Gruden. Colt McCoy runs Jay Gruden’s offense exactly the way Gruden wants it to be run…right on the edge between precision and recklessness. Many believe Gruden would have been perfectly content to start Colt McCoy this season rather than trading away assets to bring in Alex Smith. In some ways, he is the perfect test case for evaluating Gruden as a head coach.

Can Gruden’s offense flourish with a talented but flawed quarterback if that quarterback runs it just as intended? Can Gruden take his team to the playoffs in spite of losing his starting quarterback? Can Gruden rally the troops and get one key win when so many factors are conspiring against him? Is this the year he finally breaks the Redskins out of mediocrity and into a solid, wire-to-wire division title? Or is this yet another year where the Redskins find themselves scratching and clawing their way toward a play-in game in Week 17?

This game represents the difference between two divergent paths for this team, for its coach, and for its new starting quarterback. Will they seize the moment and deal the knockout blow to their hated rivals, or will they succumb to the adversity and limp to the finish line of another middling season?

Prediction: Gruden will have the team ready. They’ll respond to getting punched in the mouth early on, keep the game close, and manage to take a lead late in the game on the back of some Colt McCoy heroics, only to have their defense unable to hold onto the lead on the last drive. Cowboys win 31-30 with Maher making the game-winner. Chaos reigns in the NFC East, and Gruden remains squarely in the “probably too good to just fire, but not good enough to inspire confidence” category of head coaches.

As usual, when predicting a loss, I sure hope I’m wrong…I really don’t want a repeat of the Thanksgiving game from 2016. We’ll see if this edition of the Thanksgiving rivalry game brings more joy than that one. Connect with me on Twitter @TheRealityIs__ #HTTR