Jay Gruden / Gardner Minshew Relationship Critical for Jaguars

It’s fair to say that his Washington Redskins stint didn’t enhance the reputation of Jay Gruden as a head coach.

Jay Gruden opened 2019 with five straight losses, which all but ended the Redskins’ season and ultimately his job. 

As well as that, first-round quarterback Dwayne Haskins failed to progress under him, and didn’t make a single start. 

This has led to doubts over his new role as offensive coordinator for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Jay Gruden will be tasked with the development of second year signal caller Gardner Minshew, the team’s ray of hope. 

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Gruden knows that he will be judged on how well he clicks with Gardner Minshew in Duval.

“It’s my job to make it mesh, you know, to take on the personality of the quarterback and get him to understand what we’re trying to get accomplished on the play-to-play, game-to-game, week-to-week basis, it’s going to be critical,” he said. 

“I love Gardner’s competitive spirit. You could see it shine through on tape when he was in college and obviously last year in the games he got to play. Now it’s just a matter of him getting some general knowledge of our offense and me figuring out what he likes, what he doesn’t like, what makes him tick and go from there. I’m pretty easy to get along with, I know he is too, so I think it will be a great relationship between the two of us.”

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While he may not get a head coaching role anytime soon, Gruden is proven as an OC. He helped to coach Andy Dalton to a career-high 33 touchdowns and 4,293 yards for the Cincinnati Bengals in 2013. Jacksonville is struggling at the moment and if anyone is going to get them out of it, it’s Gardner Minshew.

“He’s a shining reason why once the opportunity presents itself, you take advantage of it. He did that, and he’s put himself in a great position to take the Jacksonville Jaguars and lead them into the future. He has shown a skillset where he can sit in a pocket, step up, make things happen outside the pocket. He’s accurate, he’s tough and obviously he’s a great leader so he’s got the intangibles you want in a quarterback. Now he’s got to get to know the team, get to know the offense a little bit so we can all gel together.”