The Post Sports Live crew debates which Redskins quarterback--Kirk Cousins, Robert Griffin III or Colt McCoy--should start the team's remaining three games this season. (Post Sports Live/The Washington Post)

The Post Sports Live crew debates which Redskins quarterback--Kirk Cousins, Robert Griffin III or Colt McCoy--should start the team's remaining three games this season. (Post Sports Live/The Washington Post)

For the first time in nearly two decades devoted to football, Colt McCoy failed to engineer a single point for his team Sunday. The Washington Redskins’ 24-0 shutout at the sack-happy hands of the St. Louis Rams left the quarterback battered, to boot, with a sprained neck that made it excruciating to swivel his head the following day.

But with McCoy’s range of motion improving and his throwing arm apparently unaffected, Redskins Coach Jay Gruden concluded that he gives Washington (3-10) the best chance of snapping its five-game losing streak.

Barring a doctor’s refusal to clear him or an 11th-hour setback, McCoy will make his fourth career start for the struggling team Sunday against the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium, Gruden said Thursday, declaring him the best option in a stable that also includes Robert Griffin III and backup Kirk Cousins.

“We’ve had looks at all three quarterbacks, and based on what we have seen out at practice for the whole training camp and offseason and the game situations, right now we feel like Colt is in the lead,” Gruden said. “So if he’s healthy and gets a full clean bill of health, then he will be our starter Sunday.”

In casting his lot with McCoy despite the offensive futility that drew jeers from Redskins loyalists against the Rams, Gruden said by inference how skeptical he remains about Griffin’s ability to develop into a classic drop-back passer and how disinterested he is in giving Griffin a platform to make his case any time soon.

The Post Sports Live crew discusses whether new head coach Jay Gruden or quarterback Robert Griffin III is less likely to return to the team next season. (Post Sports Live/The Washington Post)

“We’ve seen a lot of him,” Gruden said of Griffin, 24, whose stock has plunged dramatically under the first-year NFL coach. “And if he gets another opportunity to play — which could happen. . . . It could happen as soon as the first quarter of this game; it could happen next week, I don’t know. But our decision is to go with Colt and see how he does. The rest of it will take care of itself.”

It’s unclear if Griffin will get a chance to change Gruden’s mind in the three games that remain, all of them NFC East contests.

If he does, it would likely come because of injury or a mandate from above. Washington’s front office hasn’t made peace with giving up on Griffin, for whom they traded three first-round picks and a 2012 second-rounder.

As yet, there has been no overt hostility between the coach and the most famous face of the franchise despite the fact that Gruden has been uncommonly vocal about areas in which Griffin needs to improve, citing his footwork and decision-making in particular

Griffin has not pushed back, certainly not publicly, saying simply that he wants to do what he can at this point to help the team win.

Regardless of how the workload is shared between McCoy and Griffin in the games that remain, neither quarterback has much chance of succeeding unless Gruden can figure out how to resuscitate Washington’s moribund running game.

Last Sunday’s loss to St. Louis represented the low point. Washington ran just 12 times, netting 27 yards.

Alfred Morris, the team’s Pro Bowl running back, spent so much of the game in reverse, dropped repeatedly for losses by nominally blocked defenders, that his eight carries netted six yards.

In Morris’s defense, Washington’s blocking simply was no match for the Rams’ defensive front, which made it near impossible to run the outside zone — what Morris considers Washington’s “bread and butter.”

“Their D-line did a good job of penetrating and stopping us from flowing sideline to sideline,” said Morris, whose 899 yards rank seventh in the NFL but lag behind the pace he set his previous seasons (1,613 yards in 2012; 1,275 in 2013).

Orchestrated by former Redskins defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, the Rams defense also harassed McCoy all afternoon, sacking him six times.

Gruden has met with reporters four times since Sunday’s pummeling. Each time he has been asked to explain why he abandoned the run so early, with Washington trailing only 6-0 at halftime. Each time, his answer hasn’t pointed to one failing. Much like the Redskins’ season, it has implicated a host of failures.

After gaining 12 yards on the second play of the game, Morris was tackled for no gain twice and dropped for losses of four and seven yards on outside zone plays in the first half, Gruden noted.

“We had a holding call on another one,” the coach added. “We had a false start on another one, which left us in very difficult third down-and-long situations.”

To sum up: It’s difficult to go forward when ballcarriers are dropped for losses and penalties negate would-be gains.

And it left Gruden, who was named head coach largely because of the prowess he showed as offensive coordinator at Cincinnati, saying only partly in jest this week: “If we gain two yards, I will be happy on some of them. Second and eight is a heck of a lot easier than second and 16. So we’ve just got to try to make sure we eliminate the negative plays, keep the ball moving forward as opposed to going backwards.”