Nothing signaled the end of Robert Griffin III’s ill-fated stint as Washington’s starting quarterback quite like Dan Wetzel, the premier analyst for Yahoo Sports, writing a column on Wednesday under the headline, “RG3’s fall from grace as stunning as his meteoric rise to stardom.”
Of course, given that Washington fans were already not only booing RG3 but chanting for his backup, Colt (the real) McCoy, they hardly needed a sports analyst to justify their disaffection.
Still, here in part is the professional “Dear John” Wetzel wrote:
Less than two years ago some believed Robert Griffin III could change the way the United States was governed…
RG3 was such an overnight superstar that when it came out that he – young, black, exciting – might be a Republican, political types wondered if he could serve as an outreach for the party into a pool of voters it rarely attracts….
Two years later and Griffin probably couldn’t win a caucus in his own locker room.
The final insult, even if not the final cut, came yesterday, when Washington fans were undoubtedly hoping against hope that he would mount a Peytonesque game-winning drive against San Francisco.
Instead, with the ball on Washington’s own 7-yard line and only 59 seconds left, RG3 dropped back to pass – looking more like Herman Munster than his once-nimble self – and not only got sacked by one 49er but fumbled the ball right into the hands of another. Game over: San Francisco wins 17–13.
Washington is now 3-8 with no chance of making the playoffs. More to the point, though, according to ESPN’s game-by-game stats, RG3 is now 4-14 in his last 18 games dating back to the start of the 2013 season.
Meanwhile, nobody seems more dubious about him ever fulfilling his potential in the NFL than his own coach, Jay Gruden, For here is the startling stream-of-consciousness critique Gruden offered after RG3 led his team to a 27-7 loss against a the hapless Tampa Bay Buccaneers on November 16:
Robert had some fundamental flaws: his footwork was below average; he took three-step drops when he should have taken five; he took a one-step drop when he should have taken three, on a couple occasions, and that can’t happen; he stepped up when he didn’t have to step up and stepped into pressure; he read the wrong side of the field a couple times.
So from his basic performance just critiquing Robert, it was not even close to being good enough to what we expect from the quarterback position.
(Sports Illustrated, November 18, 2013)
Folks, this is rather like an English professor at the University of North Carolina expressing abject disappointment and dismay over the fact that the most popular kid in his class can barely read or write. Which is why it was hardly surprising when Jimmy Johnson, the CBS Sports analyst and former Super Bowl-winning coach of the Dallas Cowboys, reacted to Gruden’s critique with this blunt obit:
Robert Griffin is done in Washington
(USA Sports, November 23, 2014)
I warned it would be thus:
To be honest, their new franchise player, quarterback Robert Griffin III (aka RG3), brought so much excitement, and engineered so much success, that I even harbored thoughts of abandoning my hapless Eagles and their perennially hobbled franchise player, quarterback Michael Vick…
I fear that, having been unable to take the Redskins back to the Super Bowl this year, RG3 will end up doing no more for them than Vick did for the Eagles (or the Falcons): provide boundless excitement when he plays, but hardly playing because of chronic injuries.
(“Washington Redskins Come Up Lame … Again,” The iPINIONS Journal, January 7, 2013)
But perhaps RG3 can derive some hope from the fact that fellow franchise QB Mark Sanchez had a similar experience in New Jersey, where he was “done” after four feckless seasons. Because, after being unceremoniously traded to Philadelphia, Sanchez is finally playing up to his highly touted potential, leading his new team to an enviable record so far this season of 8-3; New Jersey is languishing at 2-8.
On the other hand, given that disqualifying Gruden critique, RG3 might just flunk out of the NFL the way his fellow Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow, did. Remember him? I warned about him too:
There is no denying that Tebow is the luckiest SOB to ever play the game of football. That, despite his mediocre talent, he led the University of Florida to two national championships (2007, 2009) and has led the Denver Broncos to more last-minute wins this season than some teams have experienced in franchise history are testaments to this fact.
[T] hat Tebow beat out Kobe Bryant, Aaron Rodgers, and Drew Brees to win a recent ESPN poll for “America’s favorite athlete” demonstrates again how exaggerated and misguided the hosannas to him really are.
In any case, I am pretty sure this phenomenon will die a media death this weekend when Tom Brady and the New England Patriots show Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos, in convincing fashion, that winning football games has absolutely nothing to do with how much of a spectacle one makes of praying to God.
(“The Divine Tim Tebow? Puhleeese!” The iPINIONS Journal, January 12, 2012)
That said, I would be remiss not to restate my solidarity with those calling for Washington to stop merchandizing its racist nickname:
Can you imagine an NFL team today being called the Washington Niggers; or, given Snyder’s Jewish heritage, the Washington Hymies…?
Clearly Whites did not enslave Native Americans the way they did Black Africans. But their genocidal killing of Native Americans and confiscatory plundering of their lands were arguably far worse. And granting them licenses to operate casinos on the little reservations Whites deigned to leave them hardly compensates for all that.
Therefore, the least Whites can do today is show them the same politically correct respect they show Blacks, no?
(“Why is Washington Redskins Any More Acceptable than Washington Niggers … or Washington Hymies?” The iPINIONS Journal, October 19, 2013)
