Hue Jackson: RG3 'knows he played a big part' in his undoing in Washington
This could be Robert Griffin III's last chance at NFL redemption. And according to his new coach, Hue Jackson, the Heisman winner 'knows he played a big part' in his undoing in Washington.
By
Ryan Wilson
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2 min read
This could be Robert Griffin III's last chance at NFL redemption. The second overall pick in 2012 had a stellar rookie season in Washington but injuries derailed that early success, and by August 2015, he had been benched permanently for Kirk Cousins.
Griffin signed with the Browns last week and the terms of the deal -- two years, $15 million -- suggest that there are no long-term expectations, though first-year coach Hue Jackson sounds excited about the possibilities.
“When I looked in his eyes, I see a young man who’s been kicked around a little bit," Jackson told TheMMQB.com's Peter King. "When we talked, there was a humility to him. He took ownership of what happened to him, of what he needs to work on to be good. He knows he played a big part in what happened. There are still questions to address and work to be done. He knows. In this league, you don’t always get another chance like this. Here’s one.”
One of the (many) criticisms of Griffin is that he can't play in the pocket, an issue exacerbated by his inability to read defenses. But King writes that Griffin's growth was stunted when he suffered a knee injury during the playoffs back in his rookie season. Instead of learning the nuances of then-coach Mike Shanahan's system, RG3 was instead in full-time rehab mode. He returned to the field too soon, his fortunes took a sharp turn south and he never recovered. Jay Gruden replaced Shanahan before the 2014 season and Griffin never seemed to be in his plans.
Jackson conceded that all of that “probably played a huge role in what happened with his development.”
For the Browns, signing Griffin is a risk-free proposition; they hold the No. 2 pick in next month's draft and will almost certainly take a quarterback (either Carson Wentz or Jared Goff are the front-runners, according to the latest CBSSports.com mock drafts). That said, Jackson says one has nothing to do with the other.
“I don’t think signing Robert says anything about what we’ll do in the draft,” Jackson told King. “You never know. You can never have enough good players.”
The good news is that Jackson is known for getting the most out of his young quarterbacks.
Former NFL head coach Mike Nolan, who thinks RG3s' issues are mostly "from the neck up," conceded as much recently.
“Now it's well documented, obviously, that Hugh Jackson is a hell of a quarterbacks coach,” Nolan told SiriusXM NFL Radio on Thursday. “I've known Hue for a number of years, and he does an outstanding job with the different guys, and if you look at the guys he's coached, he's made the best of whatever their strengths were. … He's very good with quarterbacks. ... I've got to trust that Hue knows what it's doing when it comes to the quarterback, so I give him credit with that.”
Whether Jackson is the key that unlocks Griffin's talents are another matter. In the meantime, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam knows that the mockery will continue until the team finds a way to win consistently.
