Quarterback has been wildly inconsistent
ASHBURN — The good games were forgotten, obscured by disastrous results at inopportune times. Sometimes it was one pass. Other times it was entire games. Like in the Super Bowl when he tossed two interceptions. Or in the five regular season games where he was picked off at least three times.
That happened in 2006 — the same season he helped Chicago reach the Super Bowl. It encompassed the good and bad of Rex Grossman. It also led to a label: Grossman was wildly inconsistent.
“I’m definitely stereotyped as an inconsistent quarterback and I’m doing everything possible to change that perception,” Grossman said. “The only way you can change that perception is to play consistently. It’s nothing you have to overthink. It’s just a matter of doing it.”
So after a strong first outing in which he passed for 322 yards and four touchdowns, Grossman wants to prove he can follow it up with another good one. In 2006, his last season as a full-time starter, Grossman had seven outings where he finished with a passer rating of at least 100. He also had five where his rating was 40 or lower.
| Up next | |
| Redskins at Jaguars | |
| When » Sunday, 1 p.m. | |
| Where » EverBank Field, Jacksonville, Fla. | |
| TV » Fox | |
| Radio » 730 & 980 AM/92.7 & 94.3 FM/Sirius 153 | |
“You are what you are,” Redskins coach Mike Shanahan said. “You have to go out and perform. … If you don’t play with a chip on your shoulder, usually you’re not in the league for a long time.”
Sometimes he performed with the Bears; other times he did not. Still, in his first season as the starter, he did help Chicago to the Super Bowl, finishing with 23 touchdowns and 20 interceptions — 18 coming in six games — as well as a 75.6 passer rating.
“Anytime you go 15-4 and go to a Super Bowl, you have to play well on offense and you have to play well as a quarterback,” Grossman said. “That gets overshadowed by some of the bad games I played that were nationally televised. The talking heads could blame me because our defense was so good.”
Then came two weeks before the Super Bowl.
“What are you going to talk about?” Grossman said. “You’ll talk about how good Peyton Manning is and what are you going to get out of Rex Grossman? It became the lightning rod.”
But Sunday was just his ninth start since that Super Bowl loss to Indianapolis, in which he threw two interceptions. And now Grossman said he’s in an offense that he loves. He’s sped up his tempo under offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, giving him the chance to occasionally catch a defense off-guard.
“It puts more pressure on the defense,” Grossman said.
Meanwhile, not everyone viewed Grossman under the prism of his Chicago days. Receiver Santana Moss said it was Grossman’s time at Florida that stuck with him.
“He threw the ball everywhere and to everybody,” Moss said. “So when I saw he was coming over here I was like, ‘That’s Rex Grossman, he’s the gunslinger.’ That’s what we called him in college. … It’s bad he went through that in Chicago, but that’s his past. He has a chance to put that behind him.”
