

(By Jonathan Newton / The Washington Post)

Of all the odd things Jay Gruden did on Sunday — starting an injured quarterback who couldn’t make it past the opening drive, not activating three quarterbacks despite trotting out an injured starter, not intervening when Santana Moss began screaming at officials before halftime, not realizing that Moss had been ejected from the game until a Fox broadcaster later told him, not trusting the roll-outs and bootlegs that had allowed Robert Griffin III to succeed in the first half — nothing was more bizarre than his decision-making in the final two minutes of the game.

With about two-and-a-half minutes left, the Redskins got the ball back at their own 18. They were down by 11 points: a touchdown, a two-point conversion and a field goal. They were out of timeouts.

Two short passes gave Washington a first down at its own 32, and brought about the two-minute warning.

And then, the Redskins appeared to give up on the game. After a short pass and a sack, Pierre Garcon and DeSean Jackson slowly jogged back to the line of scrimmage as time ticked away. Griffin handed off the ball to Chris Thompson for a one-yard loss. Then the Redskins elected to run the clock down and take a delay of game penalty, before punting with 20 seconds to go.

At this point, I began screaming in the office. I trust those of you who weren’t already comatose (or entering your neighborhood grocery store) began screaming at home. Why would you punt there? What is the purpose of a punt there? If your only goal is to avoid injury, just take a knee and then allow the Giants to do the same.

A punt is utterly pointless. It’s rolling an orange down the sidewalk. It’s ripping up notebook paper while hiding underneath your desk. It’s singing Halloween songs in front of a Christmas tree. It’s an action that has no meaning.

“I don’t get this,” radio play-by-play man Larry Michael said, as the play clock ran down. “I don’t know what they’re doing.”

“They took no chance at any shot down the field in the last two minutes of the game,” radio analyst Chris Cooley added. “And that’s really disappointing, that you don’t at least take a shot….You don’t see a lot of delay of game penalties down 11 points in the fourth quarter.”

“It went contrary to what your regular strategy would be,” Michael further observed. “Why change your logical way of playing the game?”

Bizarrely, the Giants then fumbled the punt. The Redskins now had the ball at the Giants 29-yard line with 9 seconds left. And so there were three actions that would have made sense.

1) Kick a field goal, hoping you then have enough time for an attempted onside kick, and, if successful, a desperation heave into the end zone.

2) Throw a pass into the end zone, hoping for a crazy bounce or a remarkable grab.

3) Fearing injury, take a knee and end the game.

The Redskins chose option four: a three-yard pass to DeSean Jackson.

“More than anything, it was confusing,” said Shawn Springs, the former cornerback who now works as an analyst for Comcast SportsNet. “If you’re trying to not get anyone hurt, just take a knee. If that’s not the case, then take a shot in the end zone. Don’t throw a bubble screen. I don’t know how else to say it other than either there was some confusion or they just quit.”

Again, this was utterly senseless football behavior, a choice with no upside, no purpose, no possible justification. What is the reason to throw a three-yard pass with nine seconds left? Just to raise our collective blood pressure?

“Can’t remember the last time I saw a team down 11 pts with 1:30+ in the game quit,” wrote Kevin Sheehan, the host of the Redskins Radio Network’s pre-game show, on his blog. “Gruden threw in the towel. I thought it was disgraceful.”

Well, there’s a reason Sheehan can’t remember it: because it almost never happens. The Redskins on Sunday became the first NFL team since 2011 to punt after getting the ball back with less than three minutes remaining while trailing by two possessions. (In other words, while trailing by between 9 and 16 points.)

In fact, only four times this season has a team trailing by two possessions received the ball with less than five minutes left and wound up punting. Two of those times were recorded by the Redskins on Sunday.

This, in other words, was bizarre behavior, behavior not considered by other professional football teams.

So how do other professional football teams handle such situations? Well, 47 times this season, NFL teams trailing by two possessions have received the ball with less than three minutes remaining. Twenty times the game ended before the drive did. Thirteen times, the ball was turned over on downs. Eight times, the ball was fumbled or intercepted. Five times, the trailing team scored a touchdown. And one time — yeah, you know which one — the trailing team punted.

Let’s look at those touchdowns for a second. Why would a team trailing by two possessions with so little time on the clock bother to score a touchdown?

Well, the last time this was done, the author was Ben Roethlisberger. Trailing 35-24 to the Saints — yes, by 11 points — the Steelers got the ball back with 1:02 left, at their own 2-yard line. Three short passes, a spike, and two 15-yard penalties moved the Steelers to the New Orleans 3-yard line with four seconds left. The game, clearly, was over. And yet the Steelers still scored a touchdown, still went for (and converted) a two-point conversion. Why? Because the alternative is just to give up, I guess. After that Saints loss, for what it’s worth, Pittsburgh won consecutive games at Cincinnati and Atlanta to move back into playoff position.

Gruden, to be fair, did offer something of an explanation after the game. He suggested he was protecting Griffin, who had grimaced after taking a late-game sack.

“I don’t know what happened,” the coach said. “That’s why I kind of let the clock run out. I thought he was hurt a little bit. But he was okay. He was okay.”

Which means there was no real reason to give up. It was giving up for the sake of giving up.

No, the Redskins almost certainly weren’t going to win the game whatever they did in the last two minutes. The Advanced Football Analytics win probability chart gave Washington a 0.3 percent chance at the two-minute warning, a number that fell precipitously with every subsequent play. But to longtime football watchers, it just felt so bizarre.

“All you can say is wow,” Sheehan said during the Redskins Radio Network post-game show. “I mean, that was pitiful. There’s no excuse whatsoever [to do that] in a football game — unless you are trying to lose, and have zero desire at the end of that game to win it….But that was really grotesque to watch what happened there in the final minute and 35 seconds. It’s one of the worst things I think I’ve ever seen a team to do: to quit that blatantly when you are a touchdown and a two-point conversion away from a three-point deficit.”

This all veers dangerously close to the land of cliches, of never giving up and always trying your best. And maybe Griffin really was too injured to continue, in which case the Redskins probably should have just kneeled on the ball.

But still, it’s hard not to chuckle when you see the Instagram message posted by Pierre Garcon Monday morning.

“Remember, defeat is temporary,” the message said, “but giving up is permanent.”