Category Archives: Robert Griffin III

Johnny Manziel, Michael Vick, New England Patriots, NFL, Nick Saban, Peyton Manning, Robert Griffin III, Seattle Seahawks, Tom Brady

The Notepad: No Huddle

When I was a younger man, and a much younger writer, I wrote a Sports Blog for a daily local around my hometown. Every so often, I would bust out what I deemed “The Notepad” – a wild, random mix of thoughts about sports that I had literally jotted down on a notepad. When I needed a column idea, I’d pull out that notepad and see if anything could be fleshed out into a full-blown opinion piece.
Usually, it couldn’t – but I found that I had enough nuggets of observation on those pages that I could piece them together in a way that provided a random-thought style approach to a piece. Like a list of jokes or one-liners a comedian deems unworthy of a full bit in his set, the notepad offered me the same freedom.
From time to time, I still jot things down – just usually on my iPhone. And since the beginning of the 2013 NFL season, I’ve had many thoughts. Since this Notepad is specific to football, we’ll call it the “No Huddle”.
–       I must repent. For years – and I mean years – I hammered Peyton Manning for his poor body language at certain times, most notably if a lineman dared to commit an untimely penalty or a receiver had the nerve to drop a pass that clearly landed in the basket. It drove me Lamar Odom crazy. Essentially, I felt that Manning was showing up his teammates in a very public way for imperfections. And then my man crush, Tom Brady, started throwing fits like a five-year-old at bedtime during the course of the first two games the Patriots played against the Bills and Jets.

Did I immediately want to ignore it and give Brady the benefit of the doubt I didn’t give Peyton? Of course. But I just couldn’t ignore Brady’s body language. Now, I won’t make a mockery of it the way Keith Olbermann did on his show last Friday, but I will say I’ve re-examined this whole thing and recognize that it must be incredibly frustrating for quarterbacks to work with young receivers. You spend a lot of time working and developing report with a player or a group of players and then circumstances, mainly business related ones, change the dynamic. Each year, as Brady, Manning and even the greats like Brett Favre, get further along in their career, they sense the time running out on the opportunity to stay or be elite. And when you’re breathtaking throws are dropped repeatedly, well, you start to snap like one might expect a mid-30s Hall of Famer to snap. Sorry for all the years I spent hammering Peyton for being rude.

That said…I have to admit Brady looks poor, and the reaction still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, no matter who it is apparently. Show some decorum out there, fellas. Bite that lip, save it for later.
–       If I hear another person complain about the noise in the Seahawks stadium – especially from a visiting team or their fan base – I’m going to vomit. Too loud for you? Stay home. You chose to attend the game. If you are a player, sorry your team’s fans can’t make it as loud in your home dome as Seattle’s 12th man does. Sorry the architect of your stadium didn’t intentionally work the design to showcase noise. This isn’t church or a library.
–       Tampa Bay players don’t like the strict rules of head coach Greg Schiano, eh? I don’t like how poorly they have played or how they gave the Jets a win in Week 1.
–       Is anyone else confused by the fines, suspensions and then redactions of those fines and suspensions? Remember that old NFL Films clip of Vince Lombardi asking, in effect, what the heck was going on out there? Well, let’s cue that up right about now. These fines or suspensions are theoretically levied after the league has reviewed the tape and made a judgment on what they deem a questionable hit, etc. So by and by, on Monday or Tuesday, the NFL sends out announcements on fines and suspensions. And then within 24 hours, they change them? Why? Didn’t they look at it and make a decision? Are they that easily swayed by the appeals of the players? How does that work? Is it the Shaggy defense: “It wasn’t me!”
–       Can we stop with all the talk about how Johnny Manziel has a future in the NFL? He’s not out of college yet, and our sample size on these new age QBs isn’t large enough to know if this is a reliable system or a short-term success. I like what Manziel did against Alabama and Nick Saban’s vaunted defense. It says a lot about Manziel that he can hammer Saban’s defensive plans for more yards and touchdowns than he did in their first meeting. And I’ve professed how much I enjoy Chip Kelly’s speed offense. I also like Russell Wilson, RGIII and Colin Kaepernick. Their abilities are amazing, and frankly, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
But so far, we haven’t truly seen sustained success. Michael Vick, the forefather of this style of play, has only played one, full 16-game season in his 11 years in the NFL: 2006. He’s had several 15 game seasons, but all pre-date 2006. Since returning in 2009, Vick has started over 12 games just once – in 2011.
RGIII shredded his knee in the playoffs 9 months ago. Yes, there have been advancements in medicine and rehab – but long term, will be last until he’s 35? Kaepernick’s started just nine games (not including the playoffs). I just wrote about not poo-pooing the fun style of play we’re enjoying a few weeks ago and now I appear to be doing it. That’s not my intent. My intent is to say, essentially, let’s just watch and see where this goes over the next year, two years before we say in the modern NFL, Johnny Football has a spot reserved as a starting NFL QB.
Final thought: Take how great Manziel was against Bama with a small grain of salt. In the 2008 SEC Championship Game, Tim Tebow threw for 216 yards and three TDs, then ran for an additional 57 yards as Florida upset #1 Alabama. And Tebow can’t even get the lowly Jaguars to give him a shot. Manziel is a different player than Tebow, but two things jump out at me: Saban’s defense is great, but can give up stats sometimes and many scouts are questioning Manziel’s arm strength. The difference is that Kaepernick, RGIII and Vick have pretty good arms – and legs.
–       Lots of injuries so far this season, but I don’t know if it’s any worse than in years past. Many pundits are pointing to the lack of padded practices during training camp and the season following the changes made during the lockout a few years ago as a reason, but aren’t there always injuries? I think we’re just dealing with a chasm between old-school players who are by-products of an era when hitting and full pads was all you did. And they think it’s cheapened the game a bit. But these some of these same players will or have complained about post-career health issues. Why can’t we admire how hard the game used to be while ensuring it’s safe to play in the future?
–       Ray Rice doesn’t think much of fantasy football, or those who troll his Twitter account to say nasty things about his early season statistical struggles. I love fantasy football, but I’m not one of these trolls who thinks Ray Rice or anyone else should be thinking about fantasy stats, I hear you, Ray. Then again, don’t lower yourself to actually responding with a tweet to let them know you’re reading that garbage. Just feeding the beast, my man.

–       The Broncos sure look good. The Steelers sure look bad. We’re been here before. 2-0 or 0-2, nothing has been settled, no fates determined. Denver fans are thinking about booking tickets to New York for a Snow Bowl appearance (seriously, check out the Farmer’s Almanac for a prediction on the weather next February around the stadium) and Steelers fans are ready to fire everyone. Slow down, put the season on a simmer and just let it matriculate. It’s the NFL, after all, you know – Not For Long?
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concussions, Dave Duerson, Dr. James Andrews, Matthew Broderick, Mike Shanahan, MLB, NFL, Robert Griffin III, Steven Strasburg, Washington Nationals, Washington Redskins

Sometimes, There Are No Winners


Here’s where we start: 60-year-old men who can’t walk, can’t turn the lights on inside their home and can’t stand the pain to the point that some commit suicide.
If that doesn’t grab your attention, I’m not sure what will. Maybe phrases. Brain damage. Multiple reconstructive surgeries. Cognitive breakdowns. Early onset dementia.
These are the real, live dangers of playing football for a sustained period of time in one’s life. Is it worth it?
How can a schlub like me proclaim to have that answer? I can’t, frankly. But the fundamental fact is that across America, mothers and fathers are struggling with how to take the new information on player safety and mesh it with what is best for our sons.
I have three boys. The oldest plays travel football for a good school system. The coaches are fantastic. The medical staff in our community is top notch. And the same could be said for the NFL. The Washington Redskins have Dr. James Andrews – yes, that Dr. James Andrews, he of renown surgical fame.
And Robert Griffin III is still hurt this morning and we’re still pondering if he should have been playing at all.
Part of this is our fault. As fans and media, we eviscerated Jay Cutler two years ago for not playing in the NFC Championship game against the arch-rival Green Bay Packers with a knee injury. We encourage gritty, tough, manly behavior in sports.
But I have to ask, is it manly to eat through a straw, have recurring headaches and forget your own name by the time your 55? Is it manly to walk with a gimp, hunched over and have knees and hips replaced in your 40s?
It’s an interesting dichotomy, to pair the decision of the Washington Redskins to play Griffin over the past month with the city’s baseball team, the Washington Nationals, polar opposite decision to rest the arm of their prized franchise player, Steven Strasburg. The Nationals faced backlash, including from me, for resting him during the final month of last season, just as the team was in the playoff race. And as the Nationals advanced into the playoffs, they refused to budge: Strasburg would not be pitching until 2013.
Strasburg fought this decision, but ultimately accepted it. Griffin, according to both he and his coach, was asked multiple times about staying in the game Sunday against Seattle. He played.
He got hurt.
As Griffin said in his postgame comments, and as other former players point out all the time, you take the risk of injury any time you step on the field. It is not a variable. It’s there. With baseball and basketball – heck, with walking down the street – the risk of injury is all around us. It’s just significantly less possible to get hurt walking down the street than it is playing baseball. Likewise, the gap is roughly the same between baseball and football.
It doesn’t make Griffin more of a leader or a man to play through pain. Or maybe it does to those other players, because they are doing it, too. Football is a different sport, with its own set of protocols and guiding principles. I enjoy what leadership and experience my son gets from football. But can he find it or learn it in other, less dangerous ways?
If this is where we are as a culture and society of sports fans – that a man is measured solely by pain tolerance and his ability to run around on one leg and fight through injury to lead his team – then we’ve advanced no further than the time of gladiators in ancient Rome.
We should be better than this by now. We’re an advanced race of people, with thousands of years of information at our fingertips. We speak of logic, yet confusingly do not show any on certain things.
Remember the 80s flick, WarGames? Matthew Broderick was caught hacking into a sophisticated computer system that interacted with you (basically, what we have now). At the time, this advanced system learned from itself. Eventually, it learned that Global Thermonuclear War could not be won, under any scenario, and eventually just asked to play chess (after scaring the pants of nearly everyone with security clearance).
I’m not suggesting we all just play chess. To be certain, there’s something endearing about the leadership qualities of Russell Crowe or Russell Wilson, when they keep going. You want to instill perseverance. As a father, I know I do. We love it in America when people keep pushing and going despite the odds, despite the injuries, despite the repercussions.
But you have to look at the culture we – all of us, fans, players, coaches, media – are creating. Is there truly a way to win this game when more and more former players end up not winning at the game of life? Substance abuse, violence, suicides; these are not things I want for my boys. I don’t want them to end up like Jim McMahon, who’s forgotten more about his professional football career than anyone who went by the name “Punky QB” ever should.
Griffin’s injury hasn’t sparked new conversation around head trauma or concussions, because it was his knee.
And this goes beyond giving his team the best chance to win over the backup. Was it best for him? Maybe not. Is it his choice or the teams? Perhaps both, in some way. Yet a friend of mine, who’s had five knee surgeries, three of which were of the reconstructive nature, commented how Griffin’s knee buckling didn’t, uh, look good. He would know – my friend’s injured knee came from football.
How will Griffin’s knee hold up over time? That’s not just the concern of the Washington Redskins or fans of RGIII or the NFL. That’s Griffin’s concern, too. And maybe he’s fine with it. He’s a grown man and has signed a contract to go between those lines each week. If he chooses to play on an injured knee that could lead to major obstacles in the ways he lives life after football is his decision in almost all ways.
And you know what’s ours? What we allow our sons to do, the generation of young boys between the ages of 6-13 who really can’t do anything if we don’t allow them to play.
It’s striking that so many former players have said they weren’t sure if they would allow their boys to play football. Kurt Warner caused a stir when he said he’d prefer his sons not play and nearly retired a year before he actually did when his teammate, Anquan Boldin, suffered a nasty concussion in a mid-air collision going after a ball Warner threw. Tom Brady’s father said he waited until he was 14 until he allowed one of the league’s greatest quarterbacks to play the game. All-pro linebacker Bart Scott said he plays football so his son “won’t have to” and Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw, who won four Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers, said if he had a son he wouldn’t allow him to play.
It’s the totality of what we see – it won’t go away. Our gut instinct and reaction tell us that something is off. From former players struggling to cope (like Junior Seau or Dave Duerson) to current ones who struggle, too, we’re getting an all too clear picture of the vast differences between modern football and the game that was once played.
They are not gladiators, and this is not ancient Rome. Commendable, endearing and manly as it may be, it’s brutal and barbaric for us to ignore or subconsciously enjoy their suffering.
Are they well paid? Most certainly. But that money will be gone to prescription drugs and doctor appointments between the ages of 40 to 75. If they make it that long.
It’s one thing to watch it all unfold. It’s another to willingly and openly subject my own children to it. We’re supposed to learn from things. And I frankly can’t decide what I will do with my youngest two boys or how long our 10-year-old will play.
Because football is becoming more and more like a modern sports version of Global Thermonuclear War.
The only way to truly win is not to play. 
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