Robert Griffin III tweeted that he has been cleared to practice for the beginning of Redskins training camp.
Doctors cleared me to practice. Coach is going to ease me in. Thank you for your support & See you in Richmond
— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) July 22, 2013
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Folks in Dallas did not take the news well.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KJdlJN61EKo?rel=0
We learned five things in the Seahawks playoff game.
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RGIII wants to play through injury. He's a pro athlete. It's what they do. His infectious enthusiasm sweeps along with him. Now, as in the Seattle game, Griffin's enthusiasm is carrying us along with him.
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In the first half of the Seattle game, and earlier in the regular season Ravens game, Griffin gave little enough time for the medical staff to completely evaluate his knee and suitability to play. That is not the case in preseason. For one thing, there is more time to make the evaluation. For another, Griffin says he's learned from the experience. We hope the medical staff has too.
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We all thought it was the coach's role to pull players who needed to be pulled. We learned that coaches expect players to bench themselves if they feel unable to give 100 percent. RGIII apparently expected Shanahan or the medical staff to bench him if they saw him impaired. Shanahan has said he would take it slow with the savior of Redskins football this offseason. Griffin won't take first team snaps unless he is 100 percent.
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The Seahawks fiasco revealed that the medical staff gave the right answers to Mike Shanahan's wrong questions about Griffin. "Did he pass the tests" is not the same question as "should he return to the game." Washington has the NFL's most prestigious medical team roaming the sideline during games. You would think the coaching staff would get better medical feedback than they received that day. How did the Redskins fix that?
- Griffin and Shanahan behaved as if they had no alternative to playing Griffin throughout the Seahawks game, but they did in Kirk Cousins. No one calls Cousins an equal talent to Griffin, but he could have managed a 14-point lead for three quarters better than trying to overcome a 10-point deficit with six minutes to go. The Shanahans did not have a real contingency to play with the loss of RGIII. Perhaps that is why they plan to give Cousins the first team reps in training camp. It's not just because Cousins needs the work. The coaches have to have more confidence in him.
Life is a circle. What happened before will happen again. Everything that was in place for for the Seahawks game is in play now. Time to see if the Redskins, including RGIII, learned anything.
By the way, Mike Shanahan barely let Griffin play preseason games last season when he was healthy. I do not expect to see, and I do not want to see, Griffin in any preseason games.
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