Redskins: The Reality Is, Jay Gruden has to fire himself to keep his job

If the loss to the Bears wasn’t the beginning of the end of Jay Gruden’s tenure with the Redskins, then Sunday’s debacle in New Jersey would sure seem to be.

Anyone else hear TAPS playing off in the distance? It’s the Washington Redskins marching band bidding farewell to any hope Jay Gruden had of the team playing well enough this year to keep his Redskins career alive.

A thousand factors have contributed to this reality, and reasonable minds can disagree about whether or not he’s gotten a fair shake, had too much leash, is or isn’t a good football coach, etc. But it’s hard to imagine anyone truly believing he will  keep his job past this season on the back of anything the team could do over the next 12 games. It appears to simply be a matter of “when”, not “if”. As a result, I have to wonder what Gruden’s goals are for his remaining time in Washington.

If Gruden even wants to keep his job at this point, he might be assuming he has to figure out some way to win at least ten out of his final twelve games. He might be dreaming up the most reckless of gameplans to hope he comes up snake eyes. If this is the case, watch out for fake punts and onsides kicks and flea flickers against New England on Sunday.

If he assumes, like I do, that the team won’t be able to accomplish anything that might save him from being let go, does that affect what he’s trying to do with the remainder of the year? Is he trying to audition for future jobs by thinking outside the box with his coaching the next 12 games? Is he trying to show loyalty to his coaches and players, determined not to let anyone else get thrown under the bus? Is he just going to go uber-conservative in an attempt not to have any more embarrassing losses? In any case, it wouldn’t seem like developing a rookie quarterback for the sake of the future success of another coach would be high on his priority list.