Robert Griffin III seemed like the perfect quarterback when he entered the NFL in 2012, but now the situation in Washington has become a perfect mess.
There are many ways to rate a quarterback coming out of college, and former Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III seemed to stack up in every category.
He had speed, elusiveness, a cannon arm, pocket presence seemingly beyond his years, a magnetic personality, a great smile…
And he wore really cool socks.
Throw on top of that a Heisman Trophy and it seemed like drafting RG3 was a no-brainer. Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder and general manager Bruce Allen agreed with that thought, and gave up three first round draft picks to take Griffin as the second overall pick in the 2012 draft.
During his rookie season, it seemed that the Redskins had received the RG3 as advertised, as his dynamic play had Washington buzzing with an excitement that hadn’t been felt in quite some number of years.
In his debut game, Griffin lit up the New Orleans Saints for 320 yards and 2 touchdowns, adding 10 carries for 42 rushing yards in a 40-32 victory. For his efforts, RG3 was named the NFC Offensive Player of the Week – the first time the honor had ever been given to a rookie in his first game.
He followed up with a couple of Rookie of the Week performances, and then was honored as the NFL Rookie of the Month for September.
The Redskins were back, and Robert Griffin III was the leader (being named an offensive co-captain by his teammates) that this team had been missing for so long.
And then, the unthinkable happened.
Griffin, who had given fans and teammates a couple of mild injury scares during the season, was hurt in a Week 14 game against the Baltimore Ravens, twisting his knee and suffering a mild LCL sprain. As the playoffs arrived, Griffin was placed back on the field in the Wild Card game against the Seattle Seahawks.
Griffin re-injured his knee in the loss to Seattle, and underwent surgery on January 9 to repair both his LCL and ACL.
Then the controversy and locker room strife began to become an issue. USA Today reported that Dr. James Andrews had not cleared Griffin to play after his injury suffered against the Ravens, contrary to what head coach Mike Shanahan had stated. The finger-pointing, and he-said/she-said went into a gale force mode.
Coming back from injury in 2013 (too soon by the feelings of some), Griffin’s production was down and his explosive ability to elude the rush and gain yardage seemed completely muted. As the season muddled on, and the Redskins found themselves once again out of playoff contention, Shanahan announced that Griffin would be inactive for last three games of the season and that Kirk Cousins would finish out the season as the starting QB.
Shanahan claimed it was to avoid further injury, but it didn’t seem like Griffin was buying that logic.
The rift between Griffin and Shanahan continued to grow in the public eye, and as typically happens, a coach that has been less than successful in his tenure will lose the battle to a franchise player with whom the organization has a great deal invested – and Mike Shanahan was replaced.
With a new head coach — Jay Gruden — and a healthy knee, the Redskins and Griffin seemed ready to start anew, but unfortunately things started much like they had gone in previous seasons, with Griffin suffering a dislocated ankle in the second game of the season. Kirk Cousins once again stepped in, and frankly, looked like a starting quarterback for the first few games he played.
But Cousins and his interception troubles eventually gave way to Colt McCoy as a replacement, and then, back to Griffin as his ankle had healed.
During these weeks of quarterback revolving doors, Griffin made public statements, throwing teammates under the bus and questioning coaches decisions, saying in an interview:
"“Great quarterbacks, the Peytons, the Aaron Rodgers, those guys don’t play well if their guys don’t play well. They don’t.“We need everybody. I need every one of those guys in that locker room. And I know they’re looking at me saying the same thing. I’ll never quit on them. And I need them to do the same.”"
Griffin’s leadership began to come into question as well as his allegedly damaged relationship with his teammates, as reported by ESPN (and subsequently blasted by head coach Jay Gruden). But despite Gruden firing back at the reports that the Redskins were a locker room divided, he stood at the podium last week and announced the Griffin was being benched in favor of Colt McCoy.
No injury. No “protecting our investment” talk. Just, benched.
This was the second time in two seasons, under two different coaches, that Griffin had lost his starting job during final month of the regular season. The investment with the phenomenal payoff had just been reduced to a stop-loss junk bond.
His once bubbly personality, which helped win him over with the entire nation while at Baylor, had turned into sour grapes and a seemingly power-hungry player in denial of problems in his own game. And at some point, regardless of how much you have invested, you have to wonder if it’s not the coach who is the problem.
Now, with Griffin’s future looking uncertain, the rumors have begun to swirl about the tattered turf of FedEx field as to what the Redskins plan to do. CBS Sports is reporting that the team will part ways with Griffin at the end of the season, looking to possibly trade or even just release the one-time franchise savior.
The rest of the league apparently is no more impressed with the NFL version of Griffin than the Redskins are, with most experts who evaluate trade possibilities stating that Washington would get a third round pick at best in trade. Griffin has one year left on his contract and is scheduled to make $3.3 million next year, with a fifth-year option in 2016 for more than $16 million.
So does RG3 still have a future in Washington? Could someone with his obvious talent, who came into the league not as a bust, but as all the buzz, have regressed so far in just two seasons? It’s possible that the continued injuries to his knees and ankles have hampered his ability to be the dual-threat quarterback that made him so dangerous.
Or, perhaps like many rookies, once teams learned his tendencies and weaknesses, he was much easier to defend.
There are a number of teams who could be looking for a quarterback next season who might have a possible interest in Griffin. But teams on that list — such as the Buffalo Bills, Houston Texans, New York Jets, St. Louis Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers — may not want to take on his contract given the apparent inability to work and play well with others.
It would seem that Griffin is just one more tick-mark in the column of Heisman Trophy winners whose college games simply didn’t translate into the NFL, and the Redskins may be back to square one in looking for a solution at quarterback.