10 Days of Bruce-Mas! No. 7 - The RG III Experience!

Yup! Your eyes aren't deceiving you! Instead of the 12 Days of Christmas, we here at Redskins Maven and SI.com are honoring Bruce Allen's ten years of leadership with the Redskins with a countdown to his ten-year anniversary on December 17th.

You've also heard of "Stras-mas" for the Washington Nationals. Welcome to the "10 Days of Bruce-Mas!"

Here's how we're celebrating: Our team of Rick Snider, Bryan Manning, Ivan Lambert and myself along with some help from a secret contributor, ranked the top-ten moments in in the Bruce Allen era as President/General Manager/Executive Vice President of the Washington Redskins.

Only we're not doing it in the nice way. No. This is a list of the ten worst moments and disasters of Bruce's reign. Sorry, in advance. Oh and one more thing: We're extending this baby out over the next week plus, which might catch up to us if Dan Snyder hasn't calmed down yet and pulls the plug.

Remember what Snyder did to the infamous Vinny Cerrato ten years ago at this time and at the league meetings which are currently being held in the same city.

Away we go!

No. 10: The $36 million dollar salary cap penalty in 2012 and 2013.

No. 9: McNabb-Mania was running wild! Until it wasn't!

No. 8: The Shanahan Era - Firing multiple successful head coaches on same day!

The Robert Griffin III era began with a bang, ended with a thud and included a boulevard of broken dreams.

A Friday night in March of hope and excitement, months of exhilarating play and coverage, a devastating hit, an initial injury, a magical Sunday night at FedEx and the final physical blow all led to a season of woe and discontent.

The price tag for the Redskins to trade up from the No. 6 pick overall was that selection, two first-rounders in 2013 and 2014, plus a second-round selection (No. 39) overall in that same 2012 draft.

A deal with the then St. Louis Rams. It wouldn't ultimately net either team a lot of success but there's no doubt in any reasonable mind that the Rams would do that trade a million times over.

The Redskins were slapped with the infamous $36 million dollar salary cap penalty just two days after the trade was officially announced. They said they had no idea it was coming. I'm not sure I believe that one.

If they did, the move to trade a three-year bundle of draft capital for a breathtaking athlete, radiant personality but developmental quarterback was even more ridiculous than it was at the time.

Yes - it was a dumb deal at the time. As I said many times over on the team's flagship station, ESPN-980.

It was a typical Redskins move that while it didn't cost much financially, it created a monster splash and announced to the world that the burgundy-and-gold were serious.

It almost worked. Griffin captivated the entire football world, just like the man he now backs up in Baltimore, Lamar Jackson, is doing this year.

They won ten games. They won the division title on that wonderfully frigid Sunday night in late December against the hated Dallas Cowboys, in front of a packed house actually filled with many Redskins fans at FedEx.

The playoffs came a week later and with the season already on life support, Griffin tore up his knee on a disastrous surface that only an organization making $3 a ticket should be playing on. Not the Washington Redskins and Seattle Seahawks.

That set off a back-and-forth for the ages with Griffin "reportedly" orchestrating the type of offense he would be willing to run with the owner and Allen.

Griffin's father later dropped this bomb in GQ that did wonders for the entire situation, saying that running quarterbacks are essentially losers.

There was the Griffin "all in for week one" campaign and behind the scenes rehab video.

So many disastrous press conferences, a benching of Griffin before Week 15 and that was before Jay Gruden was hired.

There was no way it could get worse, right? Well....Johnny! You're wrong.

With the Shanahan clan out of the picture, it would be proven that they were poisonous and Dan, Bruce and Griffin Incorporated were right.

Maybe Gruden fibbed his way through the interview process? Maybe he was genuine and thought he could work with Griffin and didn't find out until it was too late?

Either way, by training camp of that first season - Gruden was done. No matter what anyone will tell you, I know and I believe most everyone else knows that Gruden had already decided the Griffin experience was going to be a a disaster.

He would never admit it publicly but Gruden was happier than a pig in poop when he was no longer forced to play Griffin by the executive branch, because he got hurt in Gruden' and the Redskins home opener.

Griffin was then forced by Allen and Snyder back into the lineup on a short week after a dramatic overtime win in Dallas for another road game in frigid Minnesota. There was a near fatal accident involving one of the team buses, a largely inaccurate ESPN report that added major fuel to the fire and a bad loss.

The sniping behind the scenes continued. After a bad November loss to the awful Tampa Bay Bucs, Griffin essentially called out his teammates to share the blame, if not to absorb most of it.

The next day, a seething Gruden was peppered with questions about Griffin and his comments and said that Griffin was not "even close to being good enough" and had "fundamental flaws" among other specific critiques.

It never got any better from there and the Redskins finished (4-12). Another disaster following the (3-13) debacle of a year before.

Somehow, someway - the Redskins, Allen and Snyder refused to end the Griffin experience that winter and Griffin was surprisingly anointed the starter early on in the Scot McCloughan regime along with the Redskins laughably picking up his fifth-year option.

Griffin was then under siege against the Lions in a preseason game, where he suffered a concussion. Many fans and uninformed media thought Jay Gruden was making decisions based on race, as opposed to doing his job and ultimately the Redskins coaches finally convinced the two corporate geniuses that they had to go in a different direction.

Kirk Cousins was named the starter before the next preseason game and moving forward. After some initial struggles, Cousins and the Redskins went on a "You Like That!" heater and won the division.

Griffin never played again for the Redskins and finally was released, ending one of the most dramatic marriages and feuds in NFL history.

Chris Russell is the Publisher of Maven & Sports Illustrated's Washington Redskins channel. He can be heard on 106.7 The FAN in the Washington D.C. area and world-wide on Radio.com. Chris also hosts the "Locked on Redskins" Podcast and can be read via subscription to Warpath Magazine. You can e-mail Chris at russellmania09@Gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @Russellmania621.