Robert Griffin III-Jay Gruden Social Media Beef Turns Ugly With Now-Deleted Comment

The weeklong social media spat between former Washington star Robert Griffin III and one of his former coaches, Jay Gruden, escalated to another level on Thursday night, with Gruden savaging his former quarterback in a brutal takedown. 

“You weren’t good enough,” Gruden wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Kirk [Cousins] was better. Cleveland didn’t want you. Baltimore did (sic) either. Quit blaming me.”

Gruden later deleted the post, but not before it went viral online.

Part two of the Griffin-Gruden saga began earlier on Thursday, when Griffin addressed the beef with Gruden on his podcast, detailing the issues that he has with his former coach. The impetus revolves around Gruden’s not defending Griffin when the team was playing poorly during his tenure.

“There was a moment that happened in D.C. that is vividly remembered,” Griffin said on his podcast, RGIII and The Ones. “Jay Gruden went into a press conference and he undressed me at that press conference in a way a coach should never undress his starting quarterback. It was after a game, and I said in the press conference that ‘the best players in the NFL have guys around them play at an extremely high level. No one is out there doing it on their own.’”

After challenging his team publicly as the starting quarterback, Griffin said he was anticipating Gruden would back him up publicly after empowering him privately to send a message to the team through the media. Gruden, according to Griffin, didn’t do that.

Jay Gruden and Robert Griffin III teamed up in Washington during the 2014 season, and the friction between the two is still palpable a decade later.

Brad Penner/USA TODAY Sports

“What people don’t know is that the only reason I went to that press conference and said what I said to challenge my teammates through that press conference was because Jay Gruden asked me to do that,” Griffin continued. “What hurt me about that after I did that in the press conference, not only did Jay Gruden not have my back, but he actually burned me with it the next day. He actually came out the next day and burned me in the media. He came out the next day in our team meeting room and burned me in front of my teammates.”

The episode led Griffin to question Gruden’s leadership qualities.

“It’s the fact that he has zero self-awareness and zero integrity, because even though he asked me to do something he didn’t have the balls to have my back.”

Time will tell whether this is the last of the public spat between Griffin and Gruden, but the weeklong saga has given NFL fans a peek behind the curtain at the rocky relationship between the duo.