Time-mapping Redskins QB Robert Griffin III’s most unfortunate events

Second Year

Oct. 28, 2013: Ouch! Again, the knee

This wasn’t severe, and it wasn’t the knee he had been rehabbing, but it sure looked bad. And yet again, RG3 shows that he’s weak at the knees. To make things worse, it was an interception. RG3 – and every quarterback – can always throw fewer interceptions. Could this injury have had anything to do with his benching later in the season? Probably not, but it was hard to point to what, exactly, was slowing RG3. So perhaps this was a part of the equation.

Sept. 23, 2013: RG3 thinks the rules are stupid

RG3’s slide was awful — so naturally it’s the rules’ fault. Wait, what?

“Yeah, it’s the rule,” Griffin said to the Washington Post back in September of 2013. “And it’s a stupid rule. You’d think if you declare yourself down that you’d be down. I mean, I wasn’t falling. I was trying to get down to avoid a hit, slide, be out there for my team. Knee down, elbow down, and then the ball comes out. According to them, it’s a fumble. That’s just the way it goes. It just sucks.”

Dec. 11, 2013: Benched/Inactive/Shut Down

The (not) benching and inactivation happened on Dec. 11, but RG3 did not clarify that he was “shut down,” not benched until April 30, 2014. Regardless, he was supposedly healthy, but not allowed to play, so it’s semantics and mixed signals. If he wasn’t physically able, it causes concern that he never fully recovered from his ACL surgery. Could it be a permanent impediment? If he was, in fact, healthy, then was it all in his head? That’s cause for alarm, too. This year was too small of a sample size to know which it was. RG3 didn’t look exceptional by any standard. It’s rare nowadays that a player doesn’t return from injury at full strength. But whether it’s mental or physical, RG3 hasn’t yet.