After Robert Griffin III captivated the NFL during his rookie season - en route to beating out Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson for the 2012 Offensive Rookie of the Year - it would have been hard to imagine him drifting into the background and accepting life as a backup less than a decade later.
In a way, that’s what has happened, though. However, Griffin still seems to believe that his best days are ahead of him.
Griffin’s career reached an impasse in 2017, when he was forced to sit out the entire season without a team interested in his services. He says that a throwing tryout with the Baltimore Ravens - one where they were initially more interested in seeing the wide receivers he was throwing to - is what earned him another shot in the NFL. And quietly, RG3 has become a stable backup for John Harbaugh and company.
Offensive coordinator Greg Roman actually used Griffin a few times in the backfield in 2019, pairing him up with Lamar Jackson and Mark Ingram II in what was called “The Heisman Package,” a nod to the fact that all three are former recipients of college football’s most coveted award. Clearly then, the NFL is still intrigued by the elite athletic ability of Griffin, which caused Zach Gelb of CBS Sports Radio to ask him if he would ever consider playing another position to get on the field more frequently.
“No, I wouldn’t,” Griffin said when asked if he would consider changing positions before letting out a laugh. “I would not consider changing positions, man, I’m a quarterback...I won NFL Rookie of the Year...came back the next year after an injury and was on pace to put up better numbers than I did before and barring all the injuries I faced in my career, I’d still be a franchise quarterback to this day.
“My goal is to get back to that. I had to earn my way back into the league after sitting out a whole season. I’m forever grateful to the Baltimore Ravens for giving me that opportunity to come in and prove myself. I came in as the fourth quarterback in 2018, and earned a roster spot. So, it’s just about continuing to build from the ground up and continuing to prove every single time that I step on the field to these coaches and to these organizations that I deserve another chance.”
“I know that Lamar is the guy in Baltimore,” Griffin continued. “But that doesn’t extinguish my fire to go out and want to be a starter. And not just be a starter, be a franchise player...be a guy that leads teams to multiple Super Bowls, so that’s my desire. I’m not in this to play for another four or five years as a backup, that’s not what I’m about...it’s not why I step in the building every single day and I think I’ve proven that to my teammates and the coaches and the organization.”
It’s funny, Baltimore may be the best place for Griffin to prove to potential suitors that he’s worthy of another chance to start in the NFL. For one, the Ravens were so dominant in the regular season a year ago that by Week 17, they were resting Lamar Jackson, the eventual MVP. That meant that Griffin got to start in the final game of the regular season. Though he wasn’t especially impressive through the air in that game, Griffin did rush for 50 yards on eight carries and helped the Ravens to eliminate the division-rival Pittsburgh Steelers from the playoff race with a 28-10 victory.
What’s more, the aforementioned Jackson stayed healthy throughout the entirety of the 2019 season, which is great for the NFL since he’s become one of the faces of the league. However, there’s a very real chance that with the style he plays, he’ll eventually at least miss a few games, which would put Griffin in position to start with a very good team around him. Teddy Bridgewater found himself in a very similar spot last year, with the chance to step in and start five games for the New Orleans Saints in the absence of Drew Brees. He led the Saints to a 5-0 record during his starts, and earned a three-year/$63 million deal to start for the Carolina Panthers this offseason.
So when Griffin III envisions himself starting for a team again, he thinks that’s a reality he’ll one day get to live out.
“Without a doubt,” Griffin said without hesitation when asked if he thinks he’ll be a starter in the NFL again. “And it’s not about anybody handing it to you, right? When I got drafted with the second pick in 2012 to the Redskins, it wasn’t because someone handed it to me - I had to earn all that. And after sitting out of the league in 2017 and coming back in and having to earn everything all over again…starting from scratch...everyone saying ‘can he do it? Can he still do this? Can he still run? Can he still move? Can he still throw?’ And I think I’ve gone out and systematically shown over the course of the last two years that I can still do all those things and do it at a high level. So, that’s my goal. And it’s not just to get back to the top of the mountain and look at the scenery, I want to get back to the top of the mountain and go win - and win a lot.”
A major theme of the early part of Griffin’s career was injuries. Plenty of other things went wrong in Washington that were indicative of much larger organizational problems, but him tearing his ACL in the team’s playoff loss to the Seattle Seahawks in his rookie season ultimately defined his tenure there. The Cleveland Browns gave Griffin a chance to start in 2016, but he suffered a fracture in his left shoulder in Week 1, an injury that ultimately sidelined him until December.
So how does Griffin, now 30, pitch himself as a potential starter given his injury history and the fact that he has one start in the last three seasons?
“What I would say is that one, I don’t get injured a lot. Football is a contact sport. A guy by the name of Matthew Stafford was hurt consistently for the first couple years of his career and then he turned it around and he’s had an illustrious long career throwing for tons of yards and having a ton of success. I wasn’t blessed with that opportunity in Washington, that’s just the way it is. When you say ‘well Robert, you haven’t started in a really long time,’ I say, well football is football and the more you play, the better you get. Now I’m sitting here as a seven or eight-year vet, 30 years old...I’ve seen a lot...I’ve done a lot and understand the game much better now than when I was a rookie and you saw what I did then.
“The crazy thing is I was just watching a game from high school - 2006, my first year as a starter in high school. And I’m watching the game and I’m missing throws and I’m overthrowing guys and I’m like ‘man, I was really bad in high school.’ The only reason that I say that now is because of how I’ve developed and what I became and what I’ve done over the course of the years. I see how far I’ve come and I can still see today how far I can go. And I just want to prove that. All I need is an opportunity.”
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