For a while there, it seemed we had seen the last of Robert Griffin III. The Heisman winner-turned Washington football savior-turned injury-plagued bust appeared in only five games during the 2016 season and was released last March by the NFL’s worst team, the Browns.
But after a year out of football, RG3 is back, on a one-year deal with the Baltimore Ravens.
We have agreed to a one-year deal with QB Robert Griffin.
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) April 4, 2018
— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) April 4, 2018
Per Pro Football Talk, the Ravens invited Griffin for a workout last week and were impressed enough with the quarterback to offer him a deal, with the sides agreeing to terms on Tuesday. In Baltimore, he will likely serve as the primary backup to Joe Flacco, assuming he beats out second-year signal-caller Josh Woodrum for the role.
This deal gives Griffin one more chance to reverse his career trajectory. After a scintillating rookie season in 2012 established the dual-threat quarterback as one of the NFL’s brightest stars, Griffin struggled during an injury-shortened 2013, got benched in 2014, demoted to the third string in 2015, released and signed by the Browns in 2016 and jettisoned again in 2017.
After all that, Griffin still has a 63.3 percent career completion rate, 42 touchdowns compared to 26 interceptions and more than 6 yards per carry on the ground, but he is quite far removed from the days of his D.C. heroics. Last we saw him, he was limping to a 1-4 record as a starter in Cleveland while setting career lows in completion percentage, yards per attempt and touchdown rate.
For Griffin to carve out any sort of genuine NFL career, he’ll have to recapture some of that rookie-year magic while avoiding the injuries that have limited him ever since. As his last few seasons have shown, that will be much easier said than done.
