Coach Jay Gruden keeps an eye on the clock during action during the Redskins’ division-clinching victory in Philadelphia. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

At this time a year ago, Jay Gruden stood in conflict with his dream. He had not toiled in pro football obscurity to let the job of a lifetime consume him. He looked at this sour version of himself — green, overwhelmed, downtrodden — and knew he had to change.

The old football sermon of his father, Jim, played in his mind: “You have to be mentally tough.” Jim was a longtime coach and scout who had success at the high school, collegiate and NFL levels, but the son remembered sitting in the stands during his father’s games and hearing fans yell and gripe about dad’s coaching. Gruden remembered his older brother, Jon, enduring criticism for six years after winning a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2003. Now here he was, one 4-12 season into his impression, and he had been cast as a loose-lipped, Robert Griffin III-hating neophyte destined to receive a reservation to owner Daniel Snyder’s graveyard of Washington Redskins head coaches.

Gruden needed to alter his image and grow as a strategist. As he reflected on the many disappointments of 2014, he whittled his improvement down to two directives:

Shut up.

Sit down.

Master Tesfatsion, The Washington Post's Redskins reporter, breaks down the Washington Redskins' playoff matchup against the Green Bay Packers. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)

It’s nicer and more formal to say Gruden needed to talk less and delegate more. But those phrases don’t express the urgency Gruden felt.

“We couldn’t have another year like that,” Gruden said. “It wouldn’t have been good for anybody.”

Noting improbable about Kirk Cousins’ rise

Despite a laundry list of things to fix, Gruden streamlined his approach. He became a more presidential public figure and he revamped the coaching staff to take pressure off himself. He learned to be a supervisor, overseeing progress from a 4-12 disaster to a 9-7 NFC East division winner that will host Green Bay in the playoffs this afternoon. In the process, he found himself — the relaxed, fun-loving coach he always had been before arriving here — evolving from a project who required significant on-the-job training to a leader growing just as impressively as his emerging team.

“I’ve grown a lot,” Gruden said. “That’s a process you’re going to have to go through as a football coach. Your first year, you’re going to have your ups and downs. You’re taking over a football team that wanted to make a change. There’s obviously some holes that needed to be filled. It’s a process. Every day, every year, you have to grow as a head coach.”

An evolved leader

In a profession that breeds pompous leadership, Gruden stands as the rare NFL head coach who makes the job seem like a goofy good time. If he’s not letting wide receiver DeSean Jackson twist his nipple during practice, then he’s whining in jest about a sports radio host calling him fat. Or he’s doing an impression of Jack Nicholson’s Col. Nathan R. Jessup character in “A Few Good Men” and shouting during a team meeting after a tense week, “You’re damn right I ordered the code red!”

Gruden learned not to take himself too seriously as a graduate assistant at the University of Louisville in the early 1990s. Back then, he alternated between professional player and college coach, and when he would return to campus after experiencing success in the Arena Football League, Howard Schnellenberger, his college coach turned boss, would keep him humble.

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“Congratulations on winning the ArenaBowl, but here are the keys to my car,” Schnellenberger told Gruden once. “Go get it cleaned.”

Later, the younger Gruden worked for his brother as an offensive assistant, being “just a total grunt,” learning the NFL game while still playing and coaching in the Arena league.

Gruden’s genes suggest he was a child of coaching privilege. But he’s really an underdog, carving his own path through the minor leagues of football before earning what many considered a dubious big shot — the task of transforming a Washington franchise that swallows coaches whole.

[July 2014: Gruden’s NFL dream took a while to come true]

Gruden is undaunted. He has made plenty of public-relations mistakes, especially in his first season. But he has turned into a likeable and trustworthy figure.

“I just felt like there was way too much outside noise last year,” Gruden said. “I could’ve handled a lot of the situations a lot better. I’m honest to a fault, probably. Sometimes I talk too much and I elaborate too much to where just part of what I say becomes a headline, and it’s unfortunate. So I’ve just got to give the facts in an honest fashion but try to eliminate the possible, dreaded headliners. And I needed to delegate responsibilities and let people do their jobs.”

After the 2014 season, Gruden went to team President Bruce Allen and Snyder with changes in mind. He wanted to hire a quarterbacks coach, which he didn’t have in his first season, and he turned to Matt Cavanaugh. He replaced defensive coordinator Jim Haslett with the high-energy Joe Barry. He poached offensive line coach Bill Callahan from the Dallas Cowboys. He changed the strength and conditioning staff and brought in more assistants who were good teachers with infectious energy.

He ran the team like a CEO, seeing the big picture and not just acting like an offensive coordinator with an inflated title. His players noticed.

“He just has more maturity in terms of being decisive with things,” fullback Darrel Young said. “You can see the change in the conversations he has on the sidelines. He understands us. He works with us. Sometimes he asks, ‘Which situation would you rather be in?’ He offers his opinion. We offer ours, and we work it out.”

Started from the bottom

When Gruden was hired, he seemingly had one mission: Fix Griffin. His job security would depend on it. After a rough first year together, this season felt like a make-or-break year for both. Certainly, it was hard to envision Gruden staying if Griffin failed.

But with Cavanaugh in charge of the quarterbacks and offensive coordinator Sean McVay being given more responsibility, this wasn’t all about Gruden against Griffin anymore. Gruden was no longer physically or emotionally tied to restoring Griffin’s star power. There were others heavily involved, including new General Manager Scot McCloughan. And when it became clear to them that Griffin wasn’t the best quarterback on the roster anymore, there was more heft behind the decision to elevate Kirk Cousins to starter, more certainty that the controversial decision was the right one. It is now the move that changed the franchise’s fortunes and the moment that Gruden took control of his team.

But in reality, Gruden has shown more this season by doing less. He leads now; he doesn’t micromanage. The head coach’s attention to the entire roster has raised the standard in every position group. He’s no longer the offensive guru who happens to be the head coach. He sees all, and there is greater accountability because he’s omnipresent.

“I just get a feel for the rest of the players and interact with everybody else instead of just totally being one-sided, quarterback-driven only,” Gruden said. “There are a lot of things you have to fix. Not just one guy. That’s something that you have to understand. There are a lot of issues, and we feel like we’ve addressed them. But you can’t just hone in on one spot. This is a total team sport.”

Gruden spent 14 years coaching in pro leagues below the NFL before Cincinnati Bengals Coach Marvin Lewis hired him as an offensive coordinator in 2011. Gruden coached in the AFL and the United Football League. He played in the World Football League.

His coaching style reflects where he has been. Gruden is forthright, almost as much as he was when coaching the AFL’s Orlando Predators and answering questions from one beat writer. He is close to his players without losing authority. And he has a can-do attitude, which has been key to handling some of the franchise’s silly controversies and functioning as a credible team spokesman during difficult times.

[Sept. 2014: Gruden’s biggest mentor was his brother, Jon]

“When you’ve had to earn your way up, you see what it’s like working from the bottom to the top, just getting to know all the different personalities and thinking about how you want to approach being a head coach if you ever got that opportunity,” Gruden said. “And this is how I do it. I think a lot of people can see through the B.S., and I try to be honest. I try to get to know everyone on the team, each guy, and I try to have some fun with them.

“It’s also important for them to know that there is a boss, somebody they have to answer to if they’re out of control. There is a fine line, but I try to be myself. I don’t know if they’re making fun of me or what. I don’t know how they perceive that.”

Thinking like a player

Dave Ragone, an offensive quality control coach and also a former Louisville star quarterback, met Gruden while both were coaching in the UFL. He recognizes the impact that coaching in lower leagues has had on Gruden. He sees it in Gruden’s humility, in his camaraderie with the players and in his resilient, resourceful manner.

“You don’t have the resources in those leagues,” Ragone said. “That alone is going to make you a better coach, all the things you have to juggle just to be able to play the game. And I’ll say this: Everybody is there for a common goal, typically. There are no million-dollar players or anything like that. It was a great learning experience because there are a lot of things you have to overcome. You learn how to improvise and you learn how to do it together.”

Ask Ragone what he admires about the 48-year-old Gruden: He appreciates a coach who never has stopped thinking like a player.

[Jan. 2014: Gruden is a quarterback at heart]

“He’s got a tremendous feel for his players and his coaches in terms of when to push, when to pull back,” Ragone said. “You can see how he was a successful quarterback at all different levels. He runs a team the same way. When you’re around him, he makes you feel like you’re the only the guy in the room. And I think that’s important, especially when you’re in his position.”

Gruden understands that one season of progress doesn’t make him the next Joe Gibbs. He looks at his 13-19 record over two seasons and stays focused on the task. He and McCloughan collaborated well this season and put the team on a path to consistent winning. But they have to prove more. And Gruden knows he has the most to prove.

“I know the evaluation of what I do is based on wins and losses, period,” Gruden said. “You have a winning season, or you don’t. If you don’t have winning seasons, you’re going to be subject to losing your job in this game. Whether it’s one year, two years or 10 years, it doesn’t matter.”

Now, though, Gruden competes with possibility, not doubt. He has changed for the better and done it as an iconoclast of NFL coaching hubris, allowing himself to be vulnerable — to be wrong — which makes his transformation all the more rewarding.