Washington Redskins: Robert Griffin III Is Paying For His Past Multimedia Failures

Whenever Robert Griffin III parts his mouth to utter something, he’s being listened to closely. Each word is placed under a microscope. Each phrase is monitored. So when Griffin says something remotely close to being controversial, there’s a collective sigh between media and fans alike saying, “oh, he’s at it again.”

That, “oh, he’s at it again,” mentality didn’t develop from under a rock. Something triggered it. Griffin’s words were not always monitored so closely.

Everything points back to his rookie season with Mike Shanahan. Robert Griffin III’s rookie year was great. It was phenomenal. But it was something the league had never really seen. Even if Griffin didn’t get injured that season, he would’ve still needed to progress from the mental aspect of the game significantly in order to have sustained success. But I’m not sure he realized that, even after the injury.

Prior to that season, Griffin was on top of the world. Sure there were a few negative stories here or there. But mostly everyone considered them to be player-hating-bits. Eyebrows didn’t begin to raise until the Griffin-Shanahan relationship appeared to become a strain. Then the stories of Griffin becoming entitled and empowered emerged. Griffin’s father stepped in and attempted to give his two cents on the coaching scheme. At one point there was a three way battle between Griffin, Shanahan and Team Orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews. It was a mess.

All of that dysfunction carried into the 2013 off-season. And that’s really where I think people became a little tired of Griffin’s antics. Wrong or right, people became exhausted by even the thought of Robert Griffin III.

The 2013 off-season was eventful for Griffin. He was of course rehabbing from his injury. However, he spent a lot of time on twitter, tweeting things like “in a land of freedom we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness.” People began to lash out at Griffin for even the most simple of tweets, like the picture he tweeted of him swimming in a pile of weeding gifts. Griffin would respond to fans on twitter, which wasn’t well accepted. Not to mention, the “All in For Week One” campaign that began in Training Camp that year. Where, oh by the way, both Griffin and Shanahan held plenty pressers seemingly taking jabs at one another. The off-season was capped off by Griffin’s highly controversial ESPN Documentary, “The Will To Win.”

That year everyone began to realize how polarizing of a figure Robert Griffin III is. There’s no in-between or balanced opinions when it comes to him. Either you like him or you don’t. Either you defend him or you oppose him. Either you’re optimistic about his on-field play or you’re pessimistic. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Robert Griffin III was presented to the world during his Heisman Campaign in 2011 as a stylish sock wearing, extremely talented — high character guy who overcame adversity in college. He was as clean as a whistle when it came to him as an NFL prospect. Everyone loved him. But I think people were waiting to see if this was genuine or if he was just another “goody-two-shoes.”

To many people’s surprise, Griffin legitimately did have some growing up to do. It wasn’t all his fault. Dealing with media is something he was protected from, according to people who covered him at Baylor. When interviews started to go in the wrong direction, his Head Coach or school official would step in and intervene. That’s fine in college, but in the NFL it became apparent that he wasn’t accustomed to guarding his own words.

The Washington Redskins attempted to help usher Griffin into D.C’s major media market his rookie season by limiting media access. But that didn’t help much either. In fact, it probably made matters worse. Griffin had to learn by experience that he has to be careful as to what flies out his mouth. Especially when you fast forward to what’s now the Gruden era. Last year was atrocious by both Griffin and Jay Gruden as to the way they handled themselves in interviews towards the end of the season.

Griffin seemingly learned from his mistakes last season by guarding his words a little more this year. That is, until his post-training camp interview with WJLA’s Alex Parker earlier this week. On the subject of there being competition at the QB position, Griffin gave a detailed answer: “I don’t feel like I have to come out here and show anybody anything or why I’m better than this guy or better than that guy,” he said. “It’s more about going out and affirming that for me, I go out and I play, I know I’m the best quarterback on this team. I feel like I’m the best quarterback in the league and I have to go out and show that. Any athlete at any level, if they concede to someone else, they’re not a top competitor, they’re not trying to be the best that they can be. There’s guys in this league that have done way more than me. But I still view myself as the best because that’s what I work toward every single day.”

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with what Griffin said there. This issue is, as soon as people read ‘I feel like I’m the best quarterback in the league’ — the bell rung and a collective “here we go again” was released into the atmosphere. It’s definitely nitpicking. It certainly is trivial. But for that brief second, even before Griffin completed the sentence, that phrase alarmed many people. Especially considering he’s played horrible the past two seasons.

Robert Griffin III is a good guy and he means well. But he’s still paying for some of his past wrong doings in media pressers and on social media. None of this will change until Griffin proves himself again on-the-field. In the meantime, he should become more self-aware and just stop feeling the need to answer questions in great detail.

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