Washington head coach Jay Gruden has already named Robert Griffin III his starting quarterback for the 2015 season, announcing at the combine that despite a disappointing showing last season, RG3 would be the club’s signal-caller going forward. But there continue to be whispers that the club won’t shy away from selecting a quarterback in next month’s draft, and today GM Scot McCloughan didn’t do a lot to dispel those rumors, saying that competition is critical at any position.
“No one will be handed a job from my standpoint,” McCloughan said, according to John Keim of ESPN.com. “You have to earn it. That’s what the NFL is about. I don’t have any ties with any of the players. I didn’t draft them. So I’m coming in — prove it to me. Prove to me you deserve to be on the field. That’s the way it should be in the NFL.”
As Keim alludes to in the above piece, John Clayton of ESPN reported last month that Washington would take Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota if he fell to the No. 5 overall pick. Jason Cole of Bleacher Report (video link) agrees, citing a team source when saying that the team will consider Mariota with the fifth pick, but they won’t trade up to get him. Cole adds that Washington is ready to move on from RG3, and that the club’s interest in the Heisman winner is “real.”
Meanwhile, don’t be surprised if Washington is “open for business” when the draft begins, per Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (link via Rich Tandler of CSNWashington.com). If Mariota is off the board, it would certainly make some sense for the club to trade down and acquire more draft picks to patch holes on its roster.