Grossman has hot streaks when he can put up points. But his 29 turnovers in 14 starts are roughly twice the maximum number allowed if you ever want to go deep in the playoffs.
As a result, Grossman is a kind of guilty pleasure, a secret you don’t tell your family. This was his kind of game: admirably ugly, with those two intercepted bombs in the first quarter and a homely 65.6 quarterback rating, but 15 of 24 passes completed for 185 yards as he outplayed Manning and secured a win.
“When things go badly early, you have 55 minutes to fix that problem,” said Grossman, who has been far more resilient, and less likely to go into a funk, while playing in the Shanahans’ offense than he was earlier in his career because the Redskins keep attacking no matter what happens. “This offense allows you to bounce back.”
Asked to expand on that later, Grossman used more colorful language to describe the way the Bears would sometimes go into an offensive shell after he made his first mistake of a game. “You can understand it,” he said. “But it’s hard to break out of that.”
As a Redskin, he’s been allowed, actually ordered, to keep firing, his first chance to be the pure passer he’s always believed himself to be. Has that been wise?
“He’s a gunslinger, man,” Moss said. After a mistake, Grossman analyzes, but not for long. “He comes right back like: ‘So what? Who cares?’ ” Moss said. “I love his attitude.”
If the Redskins should finish the season respectably, and last year’s 6-10 record gave them the No. 10 overall pick in the draft, there may be a temptation, if only for an instant, to imagine what Grossman could do next year with a better, healthier line and other offensive restorations.
That way disaster lies. Grossman could be almost any team’s backup quarterback. And he might hold down the starting job — with the same kind of 6-8 results he’s had so far in the job — until a high-pick rookie has time to serve an apprenticeship. But don’t take respect for Rex too far. Admire his relish for competition. Respect his ability to ignore his physical limits. And, go ahead, even enjoy the goofy way he just keeps bouncing back up as if nothing awful had just happened to him — again.
But don’t be deluded that the Redskins’ 5-9 record is an illusion. The biggest reason for their plight is their minus-13 turnover ratio, the worst in the NFL to start Sunday’s play. And the principal reason for that, even after you rationalize some of his mistakes as the fault of others, is still Grossman.
“We’ve talked about this from Day One. If you don’t win the turnover ratio, you’re not going to win football games,” Coach Mike Shanahan said. “You’re probably going to have five wins like we’ve got .”
Even on days like this, when Shanahan is filled with fully justified pride, that almost certainly means the expeditious elimination of the estimable Rex.
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