ASHBURN, Va. — Washington Redskins coach Jay Gruden moved Thursday to the precipice of declaring Robert Griffin III his starting quarterback for Sunday’s game at Minnesota, a big step forward from the coach’s dancing around the topic on Wednesday.

“The progress that he has made has had us put him in with the ones and prepare to be the starter,” Gruden said of usual starter Griffin, who returned to full practice on Wednesday after missing the last six-plus games with a dislocated left ankle suffered early in the Week 2 rout of Jacksonville. “If everything goes well, he has got a great chance to start. Right now, he looks great, his ankle looks great.

“We have a good choice of quarterbacks (with Colt McCoy, who led the upset of Dallas three days earlier and Kirk Cousins, who started the previous five games), but Robert’s the starter. I feel like he’s at 100 percent physically. All the doctors are on board; the trainers are on board.

“Now it’s just a matter of seeing him with the team drills and how he throws and going from there. He’s taking the starting reps. If everything goes well (Friday), he should be the starter.”

Gruden said next week’s bye isn’t a big factor in the quarterback decision because there’ll be so little practice time under the agreement between the NFL and the Players Association.

“Everybody thinks you’ve got a bye, you’ve got all this extra time to work,” Gruden explained. “(But) the players get like five days off. It’s not like we can come out here and have two-a-days. If he’s ready physically, then I think he should play, and that’s what it comes down to. After the physical part, I want to make sure he’s comfortable in the pocket with all the throws and all of his reads, the new plays we’ve added since he’s been gone, some of the new concepts we’ve added since he’s been gone.

“And if he’s up to speed making the right decisions, we have another day tomorrow, then there’s a great chance he’ll be the starter. There’s really no benefit to if he is healthy to really sitting him and waiting for the bye. It’s not like his leg’s going to get stronger. His leg’s fine. So what the heck?”

On Friday, Griffin will address the media for the first time since the week after he was injured.