It has been a strange ascent and fall for Robert Griffin III, the former Heisman Trophy winner and No. 2 pick in the NFL draft who now needs a career restart less than a month after turning 26. Griffin has reportedly been told he'll be released by the Washington Redskins.
There’s little doubt he has the talent to succeed in the NFL, having won the 2012 Rookie of the Year award and making the Pro Bowl that same season. So how did it all unravel so quickly in Washington?
We make our way through the tidal career of Griffin as he looks forward to joining a new team:
THE HIGH POINTS
The 2012 draft: Not being facetious here. Griffin looked to be on Cloud 9, and he handled himself with incredible poise. He did hours of interviews after being taken with the second pick of the 2012 draft, just after Andrew Luck, by the Washington Redskins. Then he spoke to the D.C.-area media and dazzled some more. It looked to be a home run before Griffin ever took a pro snap.
The debate was widespread on Luck vs. Griffin, and the Redskins — who traded a fortune to the St. Louis Rams to get in position to draft him — appeared to have the perfect savior for a franchise that badly needed both an ambassador and a quarterback, starved of each for years.
First NFL game: Griffin blew the roof off the Superdome that day. He torched the New Orleans Saints for 320 yards and two TDs on 19-of-26 passing, also adding 42 yards on nine rushes.
The signature image of that game was Griffin, on his back, celebrating a TD pass, with his arms raised in the air. It appeared a legend was born that day.
Gashing the Vikings: Griffin’s stock went sky high in Week 6 against the Minnesota Vikings when he completed 17 of 22 passes for 182 yards but nearly matched that yardage total on the ground.
His signature play from that game was a 76-yard run with just under three minutes left and the Redskins hanging onto a 31-26 lead. On third-and-6, Griffin took a draw and ran to the edge, beating safety Harrison Smith down the left sideline for an incredible, game-clinching touchdown.
It was Griffin’s sixth rushing TD in as many games that rookie season, and he would total 138 yards on the ground in that victory that helped the Redskins get back to 3-3.
Basting the Cowboys: The Redskins had fallen to 3-6, and Griffin’s play had leveled off a bit, but in a rare show of respect for a rookie, he was named a team captain. On a short week, coming off a blowout win over the Philadelphia Eagles — and Griffin’s “perfect” game, with a 158.3 passer rating — the Redskins went down to face the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving.
It was Griffin’s first game back in the state of Texas since coming to the NFL, having starred at Copperas Cove High School, about two hours from Dallas, and at Baylor, even closer up the road. So it had to kill Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to watch Griffin come into his stadium and gut his Cowboys.
Griffin threw for four touchdown passes in the Redskins’ 38-31 win that helped vault them to the NFC East title.
The brief glimmers: After suffering a knee injury late in his rookie season, Griffin never was the same. But he had a few performances that hearkened back to his rookie-year glory.
In 2013, Griffin torched the Chicago Bears for 284 passing yards, 84 rush yards and two TD passes, needing every inch he gained in a 45-41 Redskins win that got the team back on track. Later that season he had big games against the Vikings (281 yards passing, 3 TDs) and New York Giants (207 passing, 88 rushing) in an otherwise lost season.
In 2014, things got worse, but Griffin had enough solid moments that many still felt things could work out.
THE LOW POINTS
The knee: Everything changed when Griffin hurt his knee late in his rookie season. First, he was hit on the right knee by Baltimore Ravens defensive lineman Haloti Ngata and had to give way to Kirk Cousins in an overtime Redskins win. Griffin’s knee injury was deemed a Grade 1 LCL sprain, and he sat out the ensuing game against the Cleveland Browns.
Griffin came back to beat the Eagles in Week 16, but was he fully healed? Two weeks later, in the wild-card loss to the Seattle Seahawks, Griffin re-injured the knee, setting off a firestorm of whether or not noted sports medicine Dr. James Andrews had cleared Griffin after initially getting hurt.
That moment against the Seahawks would be a flashpoint in his career, and it would affect both his health and his trust with the Redskins for years to come.
The 2013 season: Trust between Griffin and then Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan and offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan started to diminish while Griffin rehabbed from the knee over that offseason. Despite not playing in the preseason, he started the season opener — a blowout loss to the Eagles — and struggled to regain his rookie form early on.
Even after the big game against the Bears, he regressed at times. That season bottomed out in a loss to the San Francisco 49ers in which Griffin, for the first time since high school, failed to account for a touchdown in a game — a 27-6 loss. Shanahan later benched Griffin (he said for his own safety) in what felt like more than just a health-related move.
The ankle: Griffin came back for the start of the 2014 season with the hope of being reborn. But after a solid passing performance in Week 1 under new head coach Jay Gruden, Griffin suffered a dislocated ankle and was carted off the field early in Week 2 against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The injury sidelined him until Week 9, but upon returning to the lineup the Redskins lost three straight and Griffin lost his starting job to Colt McCoy. Griffin returned to replace an injured McCoy, turning in solid performances in a win over the Eagles and a loss to the Cowboys.
He’d get another shot.
The concussion: With four-fifths of his offensive line out for the Redskins’ second preseason game of 2015, Griffin was under attack against the Detroit Lions — almost to the point where it looked like Gruden was trying to prove something. A Lions defensive lineman landed on Griffin, and he later was ruled out with a concussion under some fishy circumstances.
This started a deluge. First, Griffin was benched for Cousins indefinitely. Then there was RG3’s social media mishap. Word got out that Griffin was running practice-team snaps … at safety! And it all fell apart from there. It was clear by midseason, when Cousins started turning it on in an eventual playoff appearance: Griffin’s days in D.C. were over.
Can he ever rediscover that rookie-year level again? That’s the mystery right now.
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