Luckily, my colleague Mike Jones shed some light on the situation two weeks ago:

Why have we not heard from McCloughan? Because Allen wouldn’t let him talk at the Senior Bowl last week. True story. Allen signs off on everything. He told team PR that McCloughan wasn’t allowed to speak to the media. Gruden talked to us , and Allen spoke himself, very briefly . But that’s why you haven’t heard McCloughan weighing in on Gruden or the state of the team. McCloughan and Gruden get along and think similarly. But everything runs through Allen. McCloughan reports to him, Gruden reports to him. Allen reports to Snyder.

And then Jones provided even more clarity this week:

After two slow-developing draft classes and a couple of botched free agent shopping periods, McCloughan has [Bruce] Allen breathing down his neck. The team president wouldn’t let the general manager speak to reporters at the Senior Bowl, and word is, he won’t be permitted to do his usual interview session with local reporters at the combine either. Allen apparently wants McCloughan completely locked in on talent evaluation.

This is a persuasive reason to keep a GM from speaking to members of the media, in the same way it’s persuasive when fans get mad at players for going to sleep at night instead of studying their playbooks. I mean, the GM doesn’t have 15 spare minutes in the first six weeks of 2017? Must be a lot of talent evaluation going on!

AD

AD

So if we haven’t yet heard the real reason for silencing McCloughan in recent weeks, we might as well try to discover it ourselves. A few ideas:

1) The team is worried that this high-ranking executive would be unable to pronounce and/or remember his franchise quarterback’s first name, and a high-ranking team executive repeatedly botching his franchise quarterback’s first name in public media appearances would not be a good look.

2) The team is worried that if McCloughan spends 15 minutes chatting with the media, he might overlook a potentially crippling injury to a potential first-round draft pick that might cost this potential first-round draft pick his entire rookie season.

AD

3) There is only one man in the organization who is qualified to speak on its most important developments — like, for example, its Harvest Fest.

AD

4) There is a crippling concern that, if he speaks, the GM might be later spoofed by a woman on “Saturday Night Live.”

5) I mean, how many times do we all need to hear about “football players,” anyhow?

6) Actually, everyone is perfectly fine with McCloughan addressing the media; he just has to wear gold pants while he does it.

7) The Redskins have always believed that GMs are better served the less often they speak. Except for that time the Redskins gave their GM a radio show.

8) Look, this isn’t just about the first few weeks of 2017. McCloughan will never again address the local media. It’s that simple. NEVER — you can use caps.

9) It’s possible the GM could say something silly in a news conference that would give way to two years of jokes and radio bits. Something that demoralizes fans and encourages cynicism. Something like “winning off the field.” Something like that.