"TU: The Puzzling Plummet of RGIII by Jason Reid"

[lovemaskins]

https://theundefeated.com/features/the-puzzling-plummet-of-rgiii/

 

REID
By Jason Reid 
@JReidESPN

May 18, 2016

 

Oct. 25, 2015. The final seconds tick down for a Washington Redskins 31-30 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Skins had overcome a 24-point first-half deficit — the biggest comeback in franchise history — and it was time for one of the longest postgame celebrations in recent memory at FedEx Field. Coaches hug team executives. Players hug trainers. Fans hug anyone they can find. Only Robert Griffin III stands alone...

 

 

 

Local radio guy brought this up yesterday.  Fascinating stuff about the RG3 / Shanahan / Snyder relationship. 

 

Kinda long but good stuff. 

 

Mods I searched for it and checked Bubba'a News but didn't see it.  I apologize if this has been posted.

 

Enjoy!

[Bifflog]

Sure would be healthy for everyone involved if Jason Reid and Mike Shanahan could find some other other corpse to exhume over, and over again.

[grego]

saw this yesterday.

 

in short, there is a history of two things here- mike shanahan lying or manipulating facts to make any narrative better for himself, and dan snyder being too involved with operations of the team.

 

one of them has a motivation to come out (again) with this story now, and that's the one who hasn't gotten a new HC job despite several interviews over the past couple of years.

 

mike spoke about griffin, Snyder and the draft process last year (a quick search will find it). he explicitly said dan wasn't involved in picking players. that's not quite what hes saying now.

 

weird. or, just mike being mike.

[ExoDus84]

I read this yesterday. Nothing really new that most of ES (most) didn't already know. There was drama. There was coddling. There was football politics involved. Beyond that, and at the center of it, was a QB who just wasn't good enough, and didn't show enough improvement to warrant staying on the team. It happens all the time.

 

Time to move on.

[lupin_iv]

There's a reason you didn't find this anywhere on the site (except for the excellent Twitter thread) when it had been online for at least 24 hours.

[TheGoodBits]

There is an rg3 thread in ATN where it should be.

[TheGreatBuzz]

I haven't read it because I'm trying to move on from the whole RG3 mess.  But this article has been all over FB, being discussed on Sirius NFL, and many other places.  Sure seems to be quite the popular article.

[arftech]

And there is no real need to rehash this again especially creating a new thread...we know the events and history. 

 

Hail Em Up!

[Hail4Life]

Did I just read an article or a novel?  

[Jumbo]

 

Mods I searched for it and checked Bubba'a News but didn't see it.  I apologize if this has been posted.

 

 

 

You violated two rules when posting it, beyond your concerns to see if it had already been posted.

 

1. You put it in the wrong forum.

 

2. The title and OP are formatted incorrectly. 

 

I handled the first, you need to handle the second, asap. 

[Veryoldschool]

The only thing I learned or perhaps I should say was new in this report was Griffin's allegedly complaining that Cousins wasn’t subjected to a bunch of hits in Cleveland because Kirk ran different plays.  I remember being surprised and displeased that Griffin seemed more miffed that Cousins played rather than pleased Kirk was able to help the team get a road win and stay in the divisional race. 

 

I also remember media talk at the time about why they ran a different set of plays for with Kirk but this article suggests Griffin was resentful of his coaches instead of aware of his own limitations and annoyed that his coaches allowed his teammate with a markedly different skill set to flourish using other parts of the offense in Cleveland.  That is messed up.

[skins4eva]

Mr. Shanny is just too much.  I always felt like the decision to bring in his son told us all we needed to know about his integrity and judgment.  

 

As it relates to RGIII, what can we say that hasn't been said before?  The guy's ego was his downfall.  That's an old trope.  I would be very surprised if he turns it around in Cleveland.  I never got the sense that he had the humility necessary to dedicate himself to the craft.  I guess we'll see.

 

And Dan will be Dan.  Hopefully, Scot has him under control.

[lovemaskins]

This is the most interested part to me:

 

"With the coaches seated, Griffin walked to a blackboard and wrote:
1. Change things.
2. Change our protections.
3. Unacceptable.
4. Bottom line.

 

Griffin instructed the coaches to let him speak uninterrupted and rolled through a list of grievances, stressing that substantive changes had to occur immediately. Scrap the pass protection scheme and start over, Griffin demanded. There were 19 plays — primarily those from the 50-series and quarterback draws — that were unacceptable. Griffin, who supported his presentation with video clips of each play, expected them to be deleted from the playbook. Bottom line, Griffin said, he was a drop-back quarterback — not a running quarterback.

 

“When Robert is standing there going through all of that, I know it’s coming from Dan,” Shanahan said. “When Robert talked about ‘unacceptable,’ that was a word Dan used all the time. He was using phrases Dan used all the time. There’s only one way a guy who’s going into his second year would do something like this: If he sat down with the owner and the owner believed that this is the way he should be used.

 

“He had to have the full support of the owner and, in my opinion, the general manager to even have a conversation like that. He just had the best year for a rookie QB in the history of the game. You got selected to the Pro Bowl. We went to the playoffs. We tried to get him to slide. We tried to get him to throw the ball away. If he had told me he was hurt, I would have taken him out of the [playoff] game. To hear him … it was really incredible.”

 

 

It's crazy to think his ego was/is this big.  I was a big a fan of Robert as any and I actually like Snyder but for to really have happened is telling of why our organization sucked for so long.   

 

Hopefully, McCloughan absolutely changes the thinking that was acceptable.  No player can ever be above the team and coaches like that no matter how great a player.  Tom Brady shouldn't have that kind of power. 

You violated two rules when posting it, beyond your concerns to see if it had already been posted.

 

1. You put it in the wrong forum.

 

2. The title and OP are formatted incorrectly. 

 

I handled the first, you need to handle the second, asap. 

Will do.

[Jumbo]

Sure would be healthy for everyone involved if Jason Reid and Mike Shanahan could find some other other corpse to exhume over, and over again.

 

 

Agreed in general, and personally I wish I'd never have to read about the guy in here again. But in fairness, there are alleged specific details being newly revealed to the public that relate to the whole dealio of rg3/camp trying to dictate stuff to the team/coaches on occasion, among other things (ya'all might want to prepare for more stuff like this down the road). This was a matter many people posted about on here of course, saying/believing with some reasonable cause that it was going on/had happened, and they received a ton of hot blow-back from inveterate rg3 die-hards that it was all 100% BS right up to the end.

 

So for those posters who took all that and still look to have been right, and for those who steadfastly rejected it with fervor as "not a real deal", allowing it has a place. I doubt that place will be long-lived, however.  Even when there is actually new and relevant information in such articles  re: this stuff to chew on, people will come in and regurgitate for the trillionth time and I will close it once that happens enough.

[lovemaskins]

^^^I agree.  We heard whispers about the relationship between Shanahan and Griffin but the stuff we saw on television nowhere showed where it really was and Griffin's part in it. 

 

I just remember hearing all about his dad and how Robert didn't want to be "a scrambling QB."  This article definitely sheds a lot of light on the subject.  Also, I too hope this doesn't turn into a RG3 50 page bash session.  That wasn't my intention.  I just thought it was an interesting read and figured other ES'ers might find it interesting as well.

 

Also, him not wanting advice/mentoring from Doug Williams and Warren Moon is baffling.  They are legends at the position and could have shared their knowledge and his attitude seemed to be "I'm Robert, I don't need no Doug Williams..."  That's just not smart.  We can all learn from someone. 

[Mr. Sinister]

Keep scaping that goat, Mike

[Tsailand]

I buy about 80% of what Shanahan is selling.  But even if it's 100% true, it doesn't make him look good, just spineless.

 

His $35M was fully guaranteed from the first day he stepped in the building.  He should have grown some damn balls, slapped RG3 across the face with the left one, slapped Snyder across the face with the right one, and then run the offense that he though would win the most games.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

I buy about 80% of what Shanahan is selling.  But even if it's 100% true, it doesn't make him look good, just spineless.

 

His $35M was fully guaranteed from the first day he stepped in the building.  He should have grown some damn balls, slapped RG3 across the face with the left one, slapped Snyder across the face with the right one, and then run the offense that he though would win the most games.

 

That's one of the things that makes me not believe 80% of what he says lol...

[carex]

The only thing I learned or perhaps I should say was new in this report was Griffin's allegedly complaining that Cousins wasn’t subjected to a bunch of hits in Cleveland because Kirk ran different plays.  I remember being surprised and displeased that Griffin seemed more miffed that Cousins played rather than pleased Kirk was able to help the team get a road win and stay in the divisional race. 

 

I also remember media talk at the time about why they ran a different set of plays for with Kirk but this article suggests Griffin was resentful of his coaches instead of aware of his own limitations and annoyed that his coaches allowed his teammate with a markedly different skill set to flourish using other parts of the offense in Cleveland.  That is messed up.

 

they could have used the threat of RG3 running without him actually running.  Plus you know the coach himself said the team was in evalution mode after the Panthers loss.  They let RG3 put it on his shoulders.  They could have set up a run where he got to try to learn while on the field

[Mr. Sinister]

That's one of the things that makes me not believe 80% of what he says lol...

That and, you know, "Head Coach and Vice President of Football Operations, with final say on all football matters," or, you know, going on a local radio show last year, and saying Dan wasn't involved in the football ops, or, you know, benching Griffin for obviously bs reasons that were given (and big bad Dan not uttering a peep), or, you know, simply being known across all NFL circles as a control freak and near pathological liar.... THEN being given that control here.

But Dan made him do things he didn't want to do

And, after watching him nuke this team and rule it with an iron fist from the word go, making a spectical of Albert Haynesworths hardheadedness, and as a HC of a professional sports franchise, jumping at the chance every time a mic is put in his face to basically tell us "Its Dan and Bob's fault", our own fans still seem inclined to believe him or give him a pass, and seemingly half the local beat and talking heads would still have his firstborn.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a decade of bad blood can do in the realm of perception.

That perception being "Good stuff-Mike... Bad stuff-Dan and Bob"

[Califan007 The Constipated]

That and, you know, "Head Coach and Vice President of Football Operations, with final say on all football matters," or, you know, going on a local radio show last year, and saying Dan wasn't involved in the football ops, or, you know, benching Griffin for obviously bs reasons that were given (and big bad Dan not uttering a peep), or, you know, simply being known across all NFL circles as a control freak and near pathological liar.... THEN being given that control here.

But Dan made him do things he didn't want to do

And, after watching him nuke this team and rule it with an iron fist from the word go, making a spectical of Albert Haynesworths hardheadedness, our own fans still seem inclined to believe him, and seemingly half the local beat and talking heads would still have his firstborn.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a decade of bad blood can do in the realm of perception.

 

Well, yeah, all of that, too lol....

[Aireskoi]

... This was a matter many people posted about on here of course, saying/believing with some reasonable cause that it was going on/had happened, and they received a ton of hot blow-back from inveterate rg3 die-hards that it was all 100% BS right up to the end.

 

So for those posters who took all that and still look to have been right, and for those who steadfastly rejected it with fervor as "not a real deal", allowing it has a place. I doubt that place will be long-lived, however.  Even when there is actually new and relevant information in such articles  re: this stuff to chew on, people will come in and regurgitate for the trillionth time and I will close it once that happens enough.

 

I tried not to post about this, but then I go on Twitter and read this:

 

Neale Donald Walsch ‏@_NealeDWalsch  9m9 minutes ago

It is very difficult to experience anything that you do not believe is possible. Even if it happens, you will deny it.

 

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I have no problems with the Shanahans.  Sure, it didn't end well here for them but you could say the same about a lot of other well respected football minds that have done time here.

 

For me, it's pretty cut and dry....they figured out a very good way to get the most out of RG3.

 

I think the article was good, forced racial stuff aside but that's what TU will be focusing on and knowing that Reid wrote it, I knew what I was getting into.  Obviously the biggest part of the article was RG3 writing that stuff on the blackboard and making his demands which I had heard of before but not in that detail.  

 

RG3 played that season like no one had ever seen a QB play before.  It was truly incredible.  My buddy has some of those games on his Apple TV, we've been hanging at his house before and he's put them on.  Cowboys Turkey Day game was incredible, a virtuoso performance.  Even though we lost that Giants game, the way he brought us back was incredible.  Vikes touchdown run.

 

He took the league by storm that year, it's so easy to forget just how good he was due to all the crap that's followed.  I think he took the league by storm the way Michael Jordan did his rookie year, Magic Johnson's rookie year....like Alex Rodriguez did in his breakout year....I could go on.  

 

Three things I thought while reading that article:

 

You really have to wonder about the inherent intelligence of a person who could have such incredible success at something the way he did...and then made the conscious and planned decision to move away from what he was doing that made him successful.  

 

Jordan never ever would have stopped shooting, stopped driving to the hole, stopped dunking in those early years.  Yes, he made other facets of his game better, specifically his jump shot but he never stopped being what made him great at his core.  After he'd had figured out the Triangle Offense and saw how it worked to his advantage, he wouldn't stray from that.  

 

Alex Rodriguez wouldn't have abandoned his hitting approach.  Magic Johnson wouldn't have stopped passing the ball like he did.  Why would they?  

 

Which ties into my 2nd thought:

 

What the hell is the obsession with being a pocket passer?  What gives?  Why'd RG3 have to feel the absolute NEED to totally scrap everything that made him successful and try to become a pocket passer right away?  Dude set the league on fire....was it jealousy at Cousins during that Browns game that made him feel inept and that he had to be a pocket passer?  

 

What's with the kinky obsession of pocket passing?  

 

Third: 

 

You also have to wonder about the lack of general awareness of what surrounded him when he never went to go talk to Doug Williams.  Reid tried to make it a black QB thing but even without the race involved RG3 never took the opportunity to talk to a guy who had some serious highs and serious lows in professional football.  Never sought him out.  Never went to pick his brain.  Unbelievable.  I don't even find it disrespectful it's just....lack of a general awareness?  Understanding?  Ignorance?  A lack of curiosity for what his surroundings are?

 

I remember that Robert did really well on his Wonderlic, and that's all nice and good but I don't think a Wonderlic could have predicted these things or shown these things.  Maybe these things fall under the giant umbrella of Robert's giant ego but I can't imagine any all-time great athlete making the decision to stop what made them great.  Unbelievable.  

[SkinsGuy]

You also have to wonder about the lack of general awareness of what surrounded him when he never went to go talk to Doug Williams.  Reid tried to make it a black QB thing but even without the race involved RG3 never took the opportunity to talk to a guy who had some serious highs and serious lows in professional football.  Never sought him out.  Never went to pick his brain.  Unbelievable.  I don't even find it disrespectful it's just....lack of a general awareness?  Understanding?  Ignorance?  A lack of curiosity for what his surroundings are?

 

 

No, probably just ego.

 

He was a Heisman Trophy winner and NFL offensive rookie of the year. He probably felt he knew it all already and there was nothing anyone could really tell him.

 

I saw and heard on some of the sports shows where Griffin put out a couple of his typical cryptic tweets (today, I think). I can see GM Scott and HC Jay looking at those tweets and thinking "Damn, I'm glad we don't have to deal with that anymore"

 

So am I.

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

Here we go again rehashing all the same talking points of this debate for the quadrillionth time. I'm over it. OVER IT I SAY!! Here, I'll change the subject. How about we play a game instead? I'm thinking of a QB who sucks. Anyone want to guess who it is?

 

If you need a hint, click below and try to unscramble all the letters of his name.

GOBERT RRIFFIN