Fallen Idols: Derrick Rose and RG3 – Why We Are To Blame

Derrick Rose and Robert Griffin III have fallen from grace — and we’re to blame

Though they play different sports, Derrick Rose and Robert Griffin III are inexorably linked. Both of humble beginnings, freakish athletes, arguably at one time the most exciting players in their respective sports. Kings of their cities, franchise saviours, both prematurely cut down by injury. Both now more Clarke Kent than Superman, and for that we cannot forgive them.

Derrick Rose, the home town hero, born and bred in Chicago, the number one overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft; the first guard to be selected number one overall since Allen Iverson in 1996. The most popular Chicago athlete since Michael Jordan, Rose joined a Bulls team that had gone 33-49 the previous season and had an immediate impact. Chicago improving to 41-41 and qualifying for the playoffs as the local point guard phenom was voted onto the All-Star team, whilst also taking out Rookie of the Year honors. As Rose blossomed so too did the Bulls. In his third year as a pro Rose led Chicago to an NBA regular season best 62-20 record as he became the youngest ever league Most Valuable Player.

Not perceived as a first-round talent leading into the 2011 season, Robert Griffin III shot up NFL draft boards as he swept all before him on his way to winning the Heisman Trophy for the most outstanding player in College Football. The success starved Washington Redskins maxed out their credit cards trading away three first-round and a second-round pick to move up in the draft and select Griffin, the savior of Redskin-Nation, at number-two overall in the 2012 NFL draft.

After a bumpy 3-6 start to the 2012 season, Griffin led the Redskins with his arm and his legs on a seven game win streak that delivered Washington it’s first NFC East title since 1999. Along the way Griffin set rookie records for passer rating and touchdown to interception ratio as he was voted to the Pro Bowl and won Offensive Rookie of the Year.

Their stories like fairy tales; two preternaturally gifted athletes who intoxicated us with their gifts, overwhelming opponents with their speed and physicality, true forces of nature. Public and media darlings, the world at their feet. The two can’t-miss prospects supplied the rarest of commodities to long suffering fan bases – hope, but also the most damming – expectation.

What happens when can’t-miss prospects miss?

The Chicago Bulls with Rose were on the cusp of ten years of dominance…they didn’t get one. They didn’t know it at the time but the Bulls championship window crashed closed as Derrick Rose’s knee buckled in game one of the 2011-12 playoffs against the Philadelphia 76ers. The Bulls toiled valiantly for two and a half years in his absence, ultimately doomed by their glass ceiling without Rose, who managed less than 20 games for Chicago in that time.

After two major knee surgeries, a myriad of other “minor injuries”, several will he / won’t he soap operas, Derrick Rose is back and playing for the Bulls, but clearly diminished. As I wrote in another piece, 2014 Derrick Rose is a lot like those $20 Rolex watches you buy in Bangkok, they look almost exactly like the real thing, and unless you look really, closely you can’t tell the difference. For a while they even keep good time, just like the original, but you never know when they are going to stop.

It can happen unexpectedly, at any time and that’s why the Bulls and their fans literally walk on egg shells, acutely aware that if the window breaks once again, it will likely remain unfixable. Shards of shattered glass added to the NBA “what if” pile, along with the likes of Penny and Shaq, the Blazers and Walton, the Celtics and Len Bias.

The Redskins led the Seattle Seahawks 14-0 on a soggy FedEx Field when an obviously injured Robert Griffin III made an ill advised attempt to return to the field in the 2013 Divisional Playoff game. Griffin’s knee collapsed and along with it went Washington’s heavily mortgaged future. Returning prematurely the next season, a clearly hampered Griffin, wearing a bulky knee brace was unable to replicate his rookie success.

So much so that he was embroiled in a quarterback controversy as he was benched for the final three games of of the 2013-14 season. This season has seen more of the same, Griffin once again injured, dislocating his ankle in Week 2 and again upon his less than successful return, losing his starting job, maybe this time for good. Rumors circulate that unbelievably, just three seasons in, amid a torrent of finger pointing and bad mouthing, Griffin’s time in Washington may be up. Banished from the city in much the same way as the goat, cast into the wilderness after having the sins of the people ceremonially laid upon it.

Let’s be clear here, we are not absolving either Rose or Griffin from blame in their respective situations, each has had a part to play. However criticising Rose and Griifin has become it’s own niche industry, as these one-time gods have fallen from popular to polarizing to punch lines. Their early success fuelling sky high expectations, and that expectation was seen as a given by fans, a certainty, almost a right. Now unmet, frustrated fans keep wishing for what they think should be, rather than accepting what is. It was Epictetus that said “people are disturbed not by things, but by the view they take of them” and therein lies the problem.

Its endemic of both the public and the media to prematurely elevate players, to put them in Canton or Springfield long before their on-field deeds warrant. It is the same phenomenon that has us acutely over-identify with our teams, our favorite players, it’s why we lose objectivity, it is why unhappiness results when there is a gap between outcomes and expectations, and it is why when our greatest expectations remain unmet we must find someone to blame.

It is why nearly every story about Griffin and Rose now is a referendum on their character; he’s arrogant, he’s lazy or just not any good any more. One stays in the game too long, comes back too soon and has a hero complex; Selfish. The other stays out too long, takes longer than expected to return, he is weak, mentally soft; Selfish.

Instead of support or patience we prod and probe, analyse their body language, speculate on their state of mind, question their manhood, their mental toughness, their hunger, their passion, their leadership, whether or not they are good teammates and anything else that our 5c armchair psychology degrees uniquely qualifies us to. Questions that arise only because they have not delivered what their talent promised.

Their falls from grace are shocking by their speed and severity. There are no battered wives or girlfriends, no gun related charges, no sexual assaults, no arrests at all, yet somehow their reserves of goodwill have been depleted. The NBA and the NFL are the epitome of results oriented businesses, where the scoreboard is both judge and jury, winning absolving all sins. Both Griffin and Rose are guilty in the court of popular opinion because they failed to deliver as promised, on the field of battle.

We as fans are concerned only with our own unmet expectations, our own unmet hopes and dreams. Never really sparing a thought for these two, or the thousands of others who have had their own expectations dashed in the most personal of manners. It is not popular to espouse sympathy for sportsmen who are guaranteed millions to play a game, but spare a thought for these two, robbed of their athletic primes.

As sports fans we don’t care about the players, not really; we care about the results. We want the baby but not the labor. That’s why we lauded Brandon Roy for his toughness when he returned for the playoffs only eight days after having surgery to repair his meniscus, and why we never talk about him now, washed out the league little more than a season later. However we are only too happy to question Derrick Rose for taking his time to return. It’s why we watch football every week unconcerned about pain killing injections and concussions, but acutely concerned about how our team is playing, whether or not they will make the playoffs.

It’s why when Derrick Rose and Robert Griffin III needed us most, at the bottom, we weren’t there. Because they are guilty of an unforgivable crime – promise unfulfilled.

Somewhere along the line as sports fans we lost our patience, we lost our empathy and we are all worse for it.

The current level of Derrick Rose and Robert Griffin III’s popularity says a lot more about us than it does about them.

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