Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III. Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports
We interrupt the daily update on the physical, mental and emotional status of Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III to boldly go where intensely-focused, twitter-time journalism apparently deems unimportant.
Not to worry. The latest RG3 status and quotes will follow, although to have missed them means one would need to be under a sound-proof rock in a remote part of Earth.
Meantime, in an attempt at mentioning something relevant that some may mistake as impertinence, shouldn’t somebody ask what if RG3 and his talented second-year teammate, Kirk Cousins, were both not available to play?
Oh, wait! They apparently aren’t available. Not really. Not right now.
For sure, neither of them could play by the end of Monday night’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Griffin watched from the sideline — albeit adorned in full uniform, including a brace on his surgically repaired right knee — as Cousins limped off the field with an injured foot. Cousins’ foot injury apparently is not serious, which is a quaintly amorphous NFL term. But Cousins is reportedly not expected to play in Saturday’s third preseason game, against the Buffalo Bills.
What to do?
Hello Rex Daniel Grossman III, the Redskins’ original RG3 and worthy descendant of his grandfather, who played in the NFL for the Baltimore Colts and Detroit Lions. But old RG1 is seldom noted because he played in only a dozen games in the 1940s and 50s. And even if the current Grossman quarterback is the Redskins’ first RG3, the only memorable nickname attached to him in the NFL was Sexy Rexy.
Most ardent pro football fans are familiar with Grossman as Grossman, an 11th-year veteran well-known as a gunslinger, a poor-man’s Brett Favre without all the starts and touchdowns Favre had, but still altogether too many interceptions.
For those insisting on details, Grossman has a Favre-esqe touchdown-interception ratio, 63 touchdowns and 60 interceptions. A bit shy of Favre’s total of 508-336. But after all, Favre played 20 years. So far, anyway.
Unless the Redskins suddenly find somebody else, Grossman is the logical starter against the Bills — and in any other game this year in which Griffin and Cousins are unable to play. All the best to Griffin and nothing against Cousins, but that is a reality that should be noted.
Although he is veteran enough not to say so out loud, there is no doubt that Grossman would relish the opportunity to be a surprise savior for the 2013 Redskins.
It isn’t likely. But NFL history is littered with such gloriously unlikely events.
It certainly wasn’t likely that Kurt Warner would soar to stardom from his job as a stock boy at the Hy-Vee grocery store in Cedar Falls. He was a quarterback for the Arena Football League’s Iowa Barnstormers 1997 and in a blink was the NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP in a miraculous 1999 season with the St. Louis Rams. Warner reprised his dud-to-stud role again in 2008 when he led the Arizona Cardinals to a Super Bowl.
Grossman has success in part of his history and has that dangerous gunslinger blood in his veins.
He led the Florida Gators to the 2000 Southeastern Conference Championship. He was a close second in the 2001 Heisman Trophy race, one of the closest in history, just behind Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch (770-708).
In three years at Florida, Grossman threw for 9,164 yards and 77 touchdowns while compiling a 145.77 passer rating. That was impressive enough that the Chicago Bears took him in the first round of the 2003 draft. He was selected No. 22 overall, behind three other quarterbacks — USC’s Carson Palmer (1st), Marshall’s Byron Leftwich (7th), and Cal’s Kyle Boller (19th).
But Grossman never took command of the starting job in Chicago, not even in 2006 when he became the first quarterback to start all 16 games for the Bears since Erik Kramer did it in 1995. Even as the 2006 team rode a great defense to the Super Bowl, Grossman threw 20 interceptions to go with his 23 touchdowns and fans were calling for Brian Griese to play.
He went to Houston in 2009 before joining the Redskins in 2010. In 2011, Grossman was involved with Donovan McNabb in a less-than-spectacular battle for the Redskins’ starting job. Grossman started 13 games for Washington in 2011.
He was so impressive — slinging 16 touchdowns and 20 interceptions — that the Redskins traded three draft picks to move into the second overall spot in the draft to take another RG3, the Baylor Heisman Trophy winner. For emphasis, the Redskins added Cousins, from Michigan State, to their draft list in the fourth round.
Grossman was quickly No. 3 behind both the rookies. But this year, coach Mike Shanahan still gave Grossman a vote of confidence, of sorts, by signing him to another contract on April 3. Why? Well, perhaps in case something happened to both RG3 and Cousins.
And that brings this full circle. Under the circumstances, somebody should note that Grossman is the highest ranking, healthy quarterback on the Redskins depth chart, just ahead of Pat White. He is also the most experienced, with 54 regular-season NFL games, 47 as a starter.
While everybody else is fawning over RG3’s recuperation and mildly concerned about Cousin’s slight limp, Grossman is not taking lightly the opportunity, even if it is only a start in a preseason game.
“Any time you’ve got a chance to show where you’re at presently — and everyone’s seen a lot of tape on me – but you can always strive to get better, and you want to establish yourself every year and show you get better,” Grossman said this week. “It’s another opportunity to play. I don’t know how much I’m going to play, but that’s my mind-set, preseason or regular season.”
Meanwhile, back at the all-important Redskins press conference podium Wednesday, Griffin announced that noted surgeon James Andrews watched him warm up for 90 minutes, gave the knee a brief examination and “told me, ‘the leg looks good, looks strong. (The) movement looks fine.'”
Griffin added that Andrews told him to “stay the course” and that he’s on course to start the Sept. 9 opener against Philadelphia.
“(Dr. Andrews) felt very good about Robert’s progress,” Shanahan added. “After the Tampa game (on Aug. 29), he’s going to be with us and he’s going to give us an idea how he feels about him at that time. If Dr. Andrews felt that his knee wasn’t ready, we surely wouldn’t play him.”
Shanahan added that even if Andrews cleared Griffin to play, as the coach he could still decide the quarterback wasn’t ready. However, Shanahan said, “We see progress … I like where he’s at right now.”
But all this certainly must keep one fact in the back of Shanahan’s mind — that the Redskins are two hard tackles away from needing a quarterback to step in for RG3 and Cousins.
For now, Grossman is that quarterback. Certainly he would love to seize the opportunity, improve a legacy that left him a close second in the 2001 Heisman race, the fourth quarterback in the 2003 draft and an almost invisible No. 3 Redskins quarterback this year.
But in an emergency, who knows what Shanahan might do. Why would he settle for a knockoff when the real thing may be only a phone call away.
After all, Shanahan is featured prominently on the official Brett Favre web site saying “Brett Favre is one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of pro football. You are judged by winning and he has won more games than any quarterback who has ever played.”
Again, for those who want details, that is 186 wins — so far, anyway.
–Frank Cooney is the Publisher for The Sports Xchange and, as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee, expects someday to discuss Brett Favre’s candidacy, but probably not that of Rex Grossman.
