RG3 Week In Review

May 23, 2013; Ashburn, VA, USA; Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III (10) throws the ball during organized team activities at Redskins Park. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

Robert Griffin III is a transcendent cultural icon…and a pretty decent quarterback as well. For these reasons, I am writing a weekly Monday column in which I track/stalk his every movement during this highly publicized off-season. Whether he is rehabbing his knee or stretching it on the red carpet, you will find it here.

Week of May 20th

RG3 Follows Grandmother’s Advice, Thanks Fans: Less than a week after the controversial “wedding-gate” scandal rocked the nation’s capital, Robert Griffin has regained the moral high ground. After receiving wedding registry gifts from fans, RG3 and wife-to-be Rebecca Liddicoat returned the favor with personalized thank you notes. How sweet is that? Hopefully, this will end once and for all a discussion of wedding items in the national media…as well as the best publicity Beth Bed & Beyond has ever received.

RG2 Speaks Out: Robert Griffin II spoke with Dave Sheinin of The Washington Post about his son, the Redskins coaching staff, and the upcoming season. A few of the highlights:

“I just know that based on what I know Robert can do, he doesn’t have to be a runner as much as I saw last year. To me, you’re paying these receivers a lot of money to catch the football. I’m his dad — I want him throwing that football, a lot. A lot.”

“He knows what works and what doesn’t work. Sometimes new things are great. But there are some things you have to have in your game. Like in basketball — the fast break is great, but you’ve got to have that half-court game.

“I think for [RG3], he likes some of the things that they do. And he feels any area where he had a concern, he addressed it. And I think [the Shanahans] have concerns, too. We want to have a united community. That first year everybody was just, ‘Wow.’ And now we have to look at sustainment. It can’t be a ‘Wow’ again.”

How do we interpret these comments? Are they just the ravings of a father looking out for his son? Or are they representative of the misgivings RG3 has about the Shanahan regime that cannot be explicitly vocalized by the quarterback himself? I’m inclined to think there is some combination of these sentiments. Athletes have a long and storied history having family members speak on their behalf. Whether it is Brenda Warner demanding more money for her husband or Reggie Rose complaining about trade inactivity, a common lesson always seems to emerge from these interactions with the media: nothing good ever comes from athletes’ families. After reports of discord between the Redskins quarterback and coaching staff have begun quieting down, Robert Griffin II would be well served to let his son do the talking from now on.

James Andrews Calls RG3 “Superhuman”: The most famous surgeon in the world (and Redskins team doctor) James Andrews has come out with a message to fans and media regarding reconstructive ACL surgery: Don’t expect players to be as awesome as RG3 and Adrian Peterson. After repeatedly suggesting that Griffin is way ahead of schedule with the recovery from off-season surgery, Andrews wanted to clarify that this is not a normal rehabilitation time frame: “

“The last thing I’d want people to be thinking is people are coming back quicker and quicker. The few individuals that you know of who have come back quickly are what I call ‘superhuman’ athletes…There are only a few of those superhuman athletes out there. Their healing potential for some reason is much better than the average patient, but you can’t extrapolate their ability to come back from an injury to the average athlete.”

Guess I should probably cancel the 10K I signed up for next week, huh…

UPDATE: A previous version of this article inexcusably omitted the RG3 Tweet of the Week. So without further ado,

Time for the RG3 Tweet of the Week!

All the time, buddy. All the time.