Julian Dorey
Senior Writer
Maybe it’s karma. The Washington RGIII’s are 0-III.
I’ve said it time and time again, and I’ll say it once more: Robert Griffin III is the cockiest egomaniac to enter the NFL in my lifetime. I’ve seen guys with too much swagger (James Harrison), big mouths (Philip Rivers), and guts of glory (Rex Ryan—and no pun intended). I’ve even seen well-spoken, well-educated players with the common sense of an armed robber wielding a loaded water gun (Donovan McNabb).
But never have I seen a more blatantly arrogant, overly-ambitious, attention-seeking bigot that is RGIII.
The saddest part is that Bob (I like calling him by his shortened, universally-common name) is a good player. Not a great player. A good one. Admittedly, he could be great someday, but the media made him out to be a messiah in his first season. Typical overreaction.
Many pounded their fists on the table and insisted that he was much better than the quarterback selected before him, Andrew Luck. Never mind that mega-moron himself, Skip Bayless, was perhaps the leader of this “movement.”
You see, Griffin has something that Luck doesn’t: complete, inarguable marketability. As a ripped-out-of-his-mind, freakish athlete with a Heisman Trophy sitting in his living room, a man with a love for tacky, outrageous, and unnecessary socks, a man with a consistent social media presence, and a man with a thirst for opinion-giving that rivals world leaders, Griffin was an obvious subject of mouth-drooling among the country’s biggest marketers when he declared for the 2012 NFL draft.
Luck, on the other hand, is a plain-spoken, nerd-type with little public presence worth noting once he hangs his pads up each day. This is clearly why Griffin enjoyed significantly more attention and praise last year.
I’m usually not one to jump to quick conclusions and, for the sake of argument, I’m going to avoid breaking that code now. But I will say this: despite the fact that Griffin does deserve more time to ease his recovering knee back into form (he tore his ACL and PCL in the Wild Card round of last year’s playoffs), he and his teammates look utterly flat and lifeless through three games. In fairness, not all of it is on him. His defense is pathetic, Alfred Morris has been disappointing, and his coaches have a history with mishandling their QBs.
The facts and the tape don’t lie. No one seems to be afraid of Griffin’s vaunted legs, he’s turning the ball over like crazy (which actually started last year–he has 17 fumbles in 19 career games, including the playoffs), and his passes lack that Pro-Bowl look.
And the result? A 0-III hole to start the campaign.
Luck, on the other hand, looks to be in complete control and is coming off a well-managed, old-school, convincing victory in San Francisco. His throws look a lot like Peyton Manning’s used to in the same Colts uniform. When you put Luck’s tape side-by-side with Griffin’s at the moment, there’s absolutely no comparison. Even if I take into account Griffin’s injury, eliminate this year’s tape so far, and put in last year’s tape side-by-side, Luck is clearly much farther along at this point. Sure, Griffin has a lot of amazing athletic highlights (and his talent is absolutely undeniable), but as a quarterback his skills are nowhere near Luck’s. I can’t stress enough that Luck had absolutely nothing outside of a 34-year-old Reggie Wayne to work with last year. He had a bunch of no-names and rookies.
Why don’t I feel bad for Griffin? I mentioned it before, and I’ll expand upon it now: his ego. This is the guy who looked into a TV camera a week before he won the Heisman and declared that he had already won (very out of the ordinary). This is the guy who had to mention that the Redskins would have drafted him number one, ahead of Luck, if they had owned the first pick. This is the guy who couldn’t shut up and ran a media campaign all summer about how his coaches were babies and should just put him on the field (before a single, sane doctor cleared him). This is the guy who refused to come out of a playoff game last year after he clearly was hurting the team with a blown-out knee.
Did I mention his socks?
Griffin brings it on himself. Plain and simple. He wants the attention? Fine. He can have it.
But I got news for you, Bob, it ain’t all gonna be positive. Not with your arrogance. How about you put your money where your mouth is and replace that zero in the win column? Maybe then you’d get some of the respect and credentials you so obviously crave. Maybe even one day, you’ll figure out just how great you can be with a quieter, humble approach. Maybe you’ll put a few rings on your finger.
Until then, put your head down and worry about the team for a change.