Yesterday the Redskins made it official that our #2 pick in the draft was and is going to the starting Quarterback on September 9th when we open up the season against the Jonathon Vilma less New Orleans Saints. Shanahan’s official statement was “He’s the starter. Period.”. So I would say that is he is pretty emphatic about RG3 starting for the team considering he is usually fairly guarded about his responses with the media. Shanahan had been non-committal since the draft about RG3 being named starter but after the rookie mini camp this weekend where RG3 apparently looked impressive (as impressive as somebody can look in a rookie minicamp), he decided it was time to make the announcement.
Personally I like the idea of giving the starting QB job to RG3 this early. Usually coaches don’t announce it untill a few weeks before the season (unless there is already an established QB there) so their will be competition throughout the off-season and pre-season but I think it is important for everybody to know that this is RG3′s team and it will be a big confidence booster for him. Not that he was lacking in confidence or swag to begin with but now he knows he is the man and he can be the team’s leader from day 1. It’s also a good thing from the fans’ perspective because now they are guaranteed the excitement of having RG3 starting from day 1 as well as given the satisfaction that all those picks were given up for a guy who will start right away.
One thing that this also kind of dispels and that I thought was kind of ridiculous to begin with was that their was any sort of QB controversy between our two draft picks with RG3 and Kirk Cousins. I am not sure why they drafted Cousins to begin with, what is possibly the best scenario that could come out of that? He ends up being a solid backup? He’s the next Matt Flynn and we trade him for a very similar pick that we drafted him with? RG3 fails and he ends up being solid for us? Not sure any of those really warrant us wasting a 4th round pick on him but we did and I still don’t think there should be any sort of QB controversy. As Stephen A. Smith likes to say Kirk Cousins was the 102nd and RG3 was the 2nd… so there should not be much controversy to begin with. We gave up 3 1st round picks and a 2nd rounder for RG3 so it shouldn’t have been any question as to who our guy was but now with us naming RG3 the official starter that ends all questions. I still don’t understand why we draft Cousins, but I don’t think he will be a problem for RG3.