AP

Jay Gruden has said that Robert Griffin III will be Washington’s starting quarterback this season. But a player who was at the practices and in the team meetings last year is not so sure Gruden and Griffin can coexist.

Ryan Clark, who played all 16 games in Washington last season but retired this year to take a TV job, said on ESPN that he could see from inside the building that Gruden wasn’t high on Griffin. Clark noted that Gruden would openly acknowledge Griffin’s mistakes, and Clark says Gruden only proclaimed Griffin the starter this year because he wanted to eliminate the distraction of a quarterback controversy, not because he’s really sold on Griffin.

“Jay Gruden, as you saw from last year — the media reports where he would say RG3 took a five-step drop where he was supposed to take three, or he looked the wrong way this many times in a game — he showed the world that it wasn’t his guy,” Clark said. “He comes out early in the offseason and says, ‘You know what? Robert Griffin III is our quarterback.’ I think that was to kind of try to show there’s no issues in house, but there clearly is. He’s not his guy. They want to go in a different direction.”

Clark believes the speculation that Washington might draft quarterback Marcus Mariota with the fifth overall pick will cause some problems for the team.

“To hear this early that at No. 5 if Marcus Mariota is there — it has to be disheartening to RG3. And even if they don’t draft Marcus Mariota, it could create a problem in the locker room,” Clark said.

In Clark’s opinion, Gruden was too stubborn to make changes to his offense to make the most of Griffin’s skill set.

“When you give up what you gave to get RG3 at the No. 2 pick you make things work for him, you don’t make him change his game to fit what you want to do. And I think that’s where Jay Gruden went wrong last year,” Clark said.

If Clark is right, then Griffin may no longer be Washington’s starting quarterback when the season starts. No matter how much Gruden says otherwise.