Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan isn't about to shy away from team's read-option attack, but he admits that quarterback Robert Griffin III must alter his game after suffering a grisly knee injury in a playoff loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
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"You can't take shots consistently," Shanahan told Mark Maske of The Washington Post on Wednesday at the NFL Annual Meeting in Phoenix.
Shanahan said it falls on Griffin to adapt his playing style to stay out of harm's way, learning to slide and throw the ball away when appropriate.
It remains to be seen how the knee injury affects Griffin's fever-dream mobility out of the gate next season, but Shanahan reiterated that nobody is pushing the quarterback to play before his body has healed. Still, there's plenty of optimism surrounding Griffin's ability to rebound from knee surgery.
"If hard work has anything to do with it, he'll be ready," Shanahan said.
We're bound to see the Redskins rein in aspects of their read-option carnival next season, but the scheme actually serves to preserve a player like Griffin, according to Shanahan, because it slows down defenders forced to account for multiple possibilities out of the backfield. Griffin also absorbed a string of brutal shots scampering in open space, something Shanahan has mulled this offseason.
"We don't have to run (the option), but they have to prepare for it," Shanahan said, suggesting that little will change next season in D.C.
Follow Marc Sessler on Twitter @MarcSesslerNFL.
