Jay Gruden has joined Grant & Danny every Monday this football season, and all three of them (and likely most of you out there) wished that they had bet on the Commanders being in the NFC Championship Game – and here we are, come MLK Day, and we’re into the twenties of Gruden appearances and still talking Commanders.
You can listen above as Gruden goes through what he saw in Detroit and looks ahead to how he’d try to stop Philly, and all the minutia in between – but in this case, Jay said something that ahs us feeling really good about the next three weeks or so that we had to put in print for posterity.
“Right around halftime in Detroit, they had 28 points, and I said, ‘not only can they win this game, these guys might win the whole damn thing,’” Gruden said. “This is insane; these guys are playing fast, they're playing physical, they're creating turnovers. Their quarterback’s not wavering while they're blitzing the hell out of him, and he’s not even blinking. This team seems to have a chance to put a ring on their fingers. It’s insane. It’s a hell of a thing for these coaches, and Jayden and the rest of the team, but it's fun to watch.”
Turnarounds happen in sports all the time, but as Grant noted, going from 4-13 and picking second to 12-5 and one win away from a Super Bowl just DOESN’T happen in the NFL, and indeed, Jay can’t remember anything like this.
“Hell no – nobody ever would have picked Washington to be in an NFC Championship Game before the season. They’d be an idiot,” Gruden said. “This is the greatest rookie season we've ever seen, other than maybe Magic Johnson with the Lakers, but it’s the greatest rookie season of anybody I've ever seen. It's the toughest position in sports to play, and think of all the great quarterbacks that struggled as rookies; this guy has been unbelievable, and he's not just doing it with his own reads and running. He's doing through the air with anticipation and reading blitzes, in critical situations – third or fourth down, red zone, game on the line, playoffs. He's doing it all, and I don't think we'll see that again.”
Hopefully, Daniels’ rookie season gets a 21st game in the Super Bowl, and as fast and free as a young team is that maybe playing with house money, they do have a few vets who have been there and done that, and will continue to keep the team going just the way they have all year.
“You rely on veterans like Bobby Wagner who have been there; he’s a strong influence in that locker room and he's going to be the one that's gonna really calm the nerves of everybody and make sure everybody does what they're supposed to do during the week,” Gruden said; “That's the most important thing, is to make sure we take care of the minor details throughout the week and really focus on what we're supposed to do and who we're playing against. I think that'll be an easy task for these guys, because they have been well prepared and well coached every game, and Wagner is a big part of that. He doesn't take anything other than people's best.”