In his weekly media session, Washington Redskins rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III offered insight into his development, playing more under center -- though he will be in shotgun a lot -- and calling audibles. At Baylor, Griffin operated almost exclusively out of the shotgun and did not call audibles in the same fashion.
Do you feel that you and Pierre Garcon are forming some chemistry?
RG3: Yeah, we came in together. We are looking to grow together as a quarterback and receiver. Of course I am going to have chemistry with him. Hopefully, I can have that same type of chemistry with Santana [Moss], [Leonard] Hankerson, and the rest of those guys as well. It just so happens that he got targeted more times than everyone else. It’s not like we were calling designated plays for Pierre [Garcon]. We were just calling our base plays, going through the reads and it just so happen that his number popped up.
Tight end Chris Cooley said he’s never seen you have a moment of doubt. What do you think about that statement?
RG3: I don’t know how to answer that. It’s definitely been a good camp. You can be confident. You can never be overconfident. I think the experience in the Buffalo game kind of reassured myself and everybody else why they brought me here, reassured me that this is still football and still the game that we love and love to play. If you trust your preparation, not that you can’t be stopped, but if you trust your preparation you will feel confident when you go out on the field. We definitely felt confident out there.
What’s been the toughest adjustment to playing more under center?
RG3: I think it’s more with just the straight drop back. The play-action -- I think everyone has done a play action from under center. It’s not the simplest thing but it’s definitely more comfortable for me to do play action from under or from the shotgun. It’s just mostly the drop-back passing. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just something I haven’t done in a really long time. I did a little bit at Baylor and I did a lot in high school, so it’s just something you have to get used to. Getting your feet right, from doing a drop full-speed to not full speed is different than other full-speed. So I’ve got to make sure I keep my feet right and my technique sharp. That’s the one thing we’ve been working on. I think we’ve done a good job of it.
Evan Royster was impressed with an audible you called vs. Buffalo. Do you remember which play he was talking about?
RG3: We had a naked or a keeper on and they were bringing weak-side pressure. So instead of keeping it to the weak-side pressure I just audibled to a run play. Of course he is going to love it when I audible to calling his number. But it is something that you have to get used to. I didn’t really audible all that much in college. Most of our stuff was pre-snap. We had pre-snap audibles, but once we got into the play we were getting going because we were running 90 plays a game. Those were our audibles. It was good to get out there and do that.
What has helped you get comfortable with calling audibles?
RG3: Just talking about it. It’s not that you walk through the line and see a defense and think ‘I’ve got the perfect play for that defense.’ There are just certain calls that you need to have audibles with, and that’s the coaches -- a testament to them. It’s not that I’m the smartest guy in the world. They’ve done a good job of throwing the whole offense at me. Now that we’re starting a game plan, they can kind of break it down and say ‘If you get this specific look, you can audible to this play.’ That’s really helped me to learn the offense first and then come back with the audibles, instead of audibling to a play I’ve never run in my life and being confused out there. They’ve kept it really consistent with the way that they’ve introduced me to the offense and I feel really good about it.
John Keim covers the Redskins for the Washington Examiner. Follow him on Twitter @CBSSportsNFLWAS or @John_Keim.
