ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — It takes quite the sales job to explain why a medically cleared Robert Griffin III won’t play for the rest of the season.

Embattled Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan realized that and gave it his best shot Wednesday, speaking passionately at times in a 28-minute news conference that included references to the team’s “circus atmosphere” and insistences that the move isn’t a ploy to get himself fired.

The upshot is that Griffin will be the inactive third quarterback for the Redskins’ final three games, behind starter Kirk Cousins and backup Rex Grossman. Shanahan’s reasoning is that he fears Griffin, who has taken a pounding in recent weeks, will get hurt, and that would ruin the franchise player’s offseason — a reversal of Shanahan’s oft-stated position that Griffin needed as much game experience as possible and would play to the end of the season.

“You’ve got to take a look at the risk and reward,” Shanahan said. “And with Robert I thought that his hits were piling up on him, giving him his toll, and I was afraid that we would set him back.”