Washington head coach Jay Gruden and quarterback Robert Griffin III dismissed a report that Griffin had "alienated" the locker room. The report, from ESPN's Britt McHenry, came out despite evidence showing that the Washington players were more incensed by the team opening the locker room to media after practice last week.
RGIII, Jay Gruden dismiss report of ‘alienated’ locker room
Washington coach Jay Gruden and quarterback RGIII both said the ESPN report of an “alienated” locker room was false.
Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports
Following Washington’s loss to Minnesota Sunday, Griffin’s first game since a Week 2 ankle injury, Gruden called McHenry’s report “totally false,” according to The Washington Post’s Dan Steinberg.
On the Comcast SportsNet postgame show following the loss, Griffin also responded to the report:
"You know, I just heard about it just a couple minutes ago, and some of the teammates were talking about it before the game, just saying not to focus on that," Griffin said. "And not a shot at you guys at all — because like you said you don’t agree with that report. But they were just saying sometimes the media’s going to cook up things and try to pin it the guys and say ‘This is what happened, this is what really happened,’ when that’s not what really happened.
”You know, [they] were just saying ‘hold [the noise] down’ for the team during the interview, because they knew how big of an interview it was. And you were there, you understand how it escalated and what transpired. But for us, Mike Wise said it in there: I believe eventually that all this will calm down. All this will calm down and we won’t have these distractions outside of football, and we’ll just be able to go play. You guys can report on the football, and [we can] win games, and that’ll make everybody happy.“Washington players’ unhappiness with the media in their locker room has been going on for some time.
Certain Redskins players have yelled, whooped and hollered over interviews in locker room for weeks since PR gave extra availability.
— Mike Jones (@MikeJonesWaPo) November 2, 2014 Is Griffin loved by every member of the team? No. who is? Not even russell Wilson. The noise was not related to players upset RGIII was back
— Mike Jones (@MikeJonesWaPo) November 2, 2014 Griffin's return to the lineup was surrounded by off-the-field controversy. From the denied locker room issues to a report that the decision to start Griffin came from the owner and general manager instead of the coaching staff, Washington will now get a much-needed week off. The team will return to the field in Week 11 when it hosts the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
See More:
