RGIII says he was ‘put in an impossible situation’ because Mike Shanahan never wanted him

Robert Griffin III fired back at Santana Moss on Tuesday, one day after Moss claimed during an appearance on 106.7 The Fan that Griffin, his former teammate in Washington, gloated when Mike Shanahan was fired as the Redskins’ coach following the 2013 season. “Santana Moss, I treat you like a brother and have always had your back,” Griffin, who has been out of a job since the Cleveland Browns released him in March, tweeted. “To openly lie about me is a betrayal.” Griffin, who added that he’s been “lied on a lot over the years,” didn’t stop there. In a series of tweets that followed, the free agent quarterback described his first two years in Washington under Shanahan as an “impossible situation with a coach who never wanted me” and said he’s been “the good soldier” throughout his career. During his final two seasons in Washington, Shanahan repeatedly praised the Redskins’ trade with the Rams for the No. 2 pick that allowed the team to select Griffin out of Baylor in the 2012 NFL draft, but he has since made it clear that he had serious doubts about the decision. “Everyone was celebrating,” Shanahan told The Undefeated’s Jason Reid in 2016. “I just didn’t think it was very smart to give up that much for a guy who we didn’t even know if he could drop back and throw. When I finally sat down with Dan [Snyder], I said, ‘Hey, you own the team. We can work with him and do some things. But we haven’t seen anything on tape that warrants giving [up] this type of compensation.’ To me, it was absolutely crazy. But I told Dan that if that’s what he wanted to do, I’d make it work.” Shanahan did make it work during Griffin’s rookie year, and the Redskins won the NFC East on the strength of Griffin’s record-setting season. Everything changed after Griffin tore ligaments in his right knee in Washington’s playoff loss to the Seahawks in January 2013. There were reports that Griffin requested a meeting with Shanahan after the season and asked him to change his offense. In 2015, two years after he was fired, Shanahan confirmed that the meeting took place. He said Griffin wanted to throw more and run less, and mentioned specific plays that he would and wouldn’t run.