Robert Griffin III reflects on the sidelines in the waning moments of Redskins loss to Seattle in the playoffs. (photo by Brian Murphy)
Much has been made this off-season about the way the Washington Redskins, and specifically head coach Mike Shanahan, handled Robert Griffin III’s original knee injury last season, his subsequent return to play, and the ultimate result — the eventual giving out of that knee in the playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks that required reconstructive surgery. It had the potential of delaying a very important part of the present and future of this franchise.
All indications are that Griffin’s rehab from the resultant surgery is going as expected, and he should be ready to play at or very near the start of the regular season. For his part, Griffin fully expects to play in that Monday night opener against the rival Philadelphia Eagles.
“There is no doubt that I’m playing Week 1,” Griffin told the media from training camp Monday. “That is just the way I feel about it.”
While that is left to be determined by the coaching staff, this preseason has been all about re-building that trust between the budding superstar and his head coach. Griffin doesn’t see it as an issue any longer, despite all the media attention it has drawn in many different circles.
“I knew this was going to happen.” Griffin insisted. “It happened on a much, much, much smaller scale in college and God puts us through things in our lives so that later on when we experience something bigger, we know how to handle it. I’m trying my dang-est to handle this as good as I can, so I appreciate what happened to me in college and how it’s prepared me for right now. And the scrutiny is going to come. You know everyone’s going to say different things. Everyone’s going to have a different opinion. But in the NFL, that opinion gets heard a lot more than the local college newspaper. So I don’t really listen to it. I’m a confident guy. Coaches are confident in me. Players are confident in me. That’s all I need.”
Still, even Griffin admits there’s part of the process that not only he doesn’t understand, but also doesn’t like.
“I can’t BS that answer. No, I don’t like it, but there is some part of it that I do understand. I don’t understand all of it. But at the end of the day, [Shanahan] gave me his word. We talked privately. I know the plan. I am not telling the whole plan because he doesn’t want the whole plan known and I understand that as well.
I don’t understand the whole plan at all. I can’t lie about that, but when you give your word to somebody, that’s all you have, so I’m just banking that they will stay true to their word and I’m staying true to mine. I’m doing everything they have asked me to without any gripes other than with you guys and that’s just the way you have to do it.”
Pressed to specify which parts of the plan he doesn’t understand, Griffin tried to answer as specifically as possible given the team’s policy about discussing injury protocol.
“I can try without putting any bulletin board material up there. Basically, the parts that I don’t understand is that [the knee has] been fixed. The rehab process – or my reintegration into the team – have been fixed without any aspect of how I’m doing personally with my knee, with my knee surgery, with my rehab. It’s predetermined and that’s the one thing I don’t understand. But like Coach said – he’s 100 percent right – I don’t have to understand it. I don’t have to like it. But at the end of the day, if he plays me Week 1 and I’m ready to go, then I’ll give him a salute and I’ll go play my butt off for him.”
Griffin has stated before he really wanted to play in the preseason, but the Skins’ plan for him doesn’t include that option. He’s been participating in practice, doing drills and the like, yet the team is still keeping him away from contact as long as possible. But make no doubt about it, Griffin feels like he’s ready for that next step.
“I want to play, let’s get that straight. I want to play in the preseason. Coach is just saying that if things go great these next couple of days and next week, then maybe, but it’s a hard ‘no’ right now. It’s my job to make that a soft no and possibly a yes. But I’m definitely going to push for it. I feel ready to go. The walkthrough was easy, really easy, and I feel like I’ll be ready to go. We’ll see what happens. I’ll definitely push for that third game, but who knows what happens.”
Why press so hard to appear in a meaningless preseason game? Well, for an injured player coming back to the team, it might not seem as meaningless.
“I don’t think the mental aspect is the problem,” Griffin explained. “In college, we didn’t have preseason games. I played the first game of the year and you get all those jitters out then. It’s more anxiousness. It’s not nervousness about the knee or anything. It’s just about getting back out there. Everyone’s going to remember your first hit when you come back from the injury, what happens. If you get up, if you tap the guy on the shoulder and say good hit and move on, that’s going to happen. So that’ll happen Week 1, but I don’t have any anxiety about that at all. I’m just ready to go.”
Griffin and Shanahan both have tried to direct questions about the injury in a forward-looking manner, during minicamps and now in the preseason. But Griffin did discuss Monday that he and Shanahan have talked about how things went down during the Seattle game and that both men tried to learn from it and move on.
“Yeah, I mean we ironed [any problems] out,” Griffin stated matter-of-factly. “There’s definitely a trust there. He’s expressed regret. Everybody had a little error in what happened in that situation. We’ve addressed it. We’ve moved on. This is part of the moving-on process. I have to be patient. That’s why I call it ‘Operation Patience.’ You don’t always have to like it. You don’t always have to know why it’s going on. But at the end of the day, God’s going to bring me out of this and get me back out there on the field with my teammates where I belong.”
As to details of the specific conversation he and Coach Shanahan had about the incident, Griffin remained steadfast that part was not for public consumption.
“That’s got to stay private. I can’t divulge that out of respect for the relationship between me and Coach.”
Quotes for this article were supplied by team press release.