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NOBODY GETS FAMOUS BY ACCIDENT: CREATING ROBERT GRIFFIN III

Being a military kid, I was blessed to live a life that’s hard to put into words,” Griffin Tweeted about his parents. “Discipline. Perseverance. Respect are a start . . . ,” the Tweets continued. “Yet those words are so much more than words in the lives of those who serve & their children. More than an inspirational quote on the wall. . . . They are life. Life [b]ecause it takes a life of discipline, perseverance & respect to have the willingness to dedicate your life to serve. . . . As a kid I experienced this dedication, as many friends saw their parents come back from war . . . and many didn’t. . . . Those who serve, both past and present, change lives forever. They risk changing the lives of their wives and children to protect us all. . . . So as a kid I thought my Heroes were fictional characters or professional athletes, but now I realize who my real heroes are. . . . The men and women who have stood, are still standing, and have fallen so that we may live our lives free are my heroes. . . . Heroes for what they do for us all & what they did for me. They brought my true hero back from war. My dad.”¹

In 2011, an installment of the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary series, The Marinovich Project, chronicled the rise and fall of former USC and Los Angeles Raiders quarterback Todd Marinovich.² The film paints a picture of a burned-out Marinovich—burned out on heroin and pot, and burned out on the pressure of living up to his father Marv’s outlandish expectations. There were images and stories of a young boy who was groomed, from the cradle, to be an NFL quarterback. There were images of the pale, skinny, floppy-haired boy being pushed to the absolute limit in the weight room and on the track. Hours and hours were spent throwing the football and then watching video to analyze the thrown football. All with the goal of an NFL career.

Todd Marinovich, at the time in his early forties, spoke into a camera while sitting on the beach—his tired body looking at least fifty, and his wary eyes looking out over the water. Marinovich fills his days now with surfing, art, and music, having left every vestige of the football life behind after one last failed tryout with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the CFL; a tryout in which he tore his ACL on the first snap of the first day of practice. “That was fate telling me to get out of the game,” said Marinovich.

Marv Marinovich, the father, was largely vilified in the press and in the first half of the piece, looked like the Monster Who Ruined His Son. The elder Marinovich became the poster child for everything bad about the Little League Dad mentality, and Todd was nicknamed “The Robo QB.” The Robo QB was groomed to play the position, publicized in local and national media, positioned at the best southern California high school for playing the position, and then ultimately signed by one of college football’s glamour programs—the University of Southern California. The Robo QB burned his bridges at USC in favor of partying, and had a short, disappointing NFL career. The family became a very public cautionary tale. Todd equated his father’s workout obsessions with his own addictions to drugs.

In the end the two have reunited, with Todd Marinovich getting clean and pursuing a promising career in visual art, and his father, Marv, (also an art major in college) partnering with him on art projects and supporting his son. But what the public doesn’t see is that it was Marv at Todd’s bedside as he detoxed, cold turkey, from heroin. And what the public also doesn’t often see is the humility that comes from hitting personal and professional rock bottoms. This is what is redemptive about films like The Marinovich Project.

The Marinovich narrative is interesting in light of the slate of complimentary stories recently published in the Washington Times concerning the relationship between Griffin and his father. The Little League Dad appears to be making a bit of a cultural comeback, if the multimillions spent annually on crafting young athletes is any indication. There are strength and conditioning camps, booming private training businesses, college-run camps, websites for college recruitment, and lots of very involved fathers. I witness this firsthand as both a father of young boys and a youth football coach in a suburb where every dad stays for the entire practice, watching along a fence with their arms folded, frowns permanently etched on their faces. My players are fourth graders.

That said, the tone of the Times series is curious. It tells of a Robert Griffin childhood spent hurdling on a track, racing up the side of a hill with a tire strapped around his waist, having every practice videotaped by mom and then critiqued by dad. Father and son would study videotapes of mobile quarterbacks like Roger Staubach and sprinters like Michael Johnson. And at midnight, after traffic had thinned, they would run a half-mile incline—coined “Griffin Hill”—near their home.³

If this were written a certain way, and/or if Robert Griffin were to experience even the slightest of public flake-outs, the articles would lose the aw-shucks, homespun, “Isn’t this great!” breathlessness and be replaced by a cynical, “See how little league dads are ruining sports?” sort of tone. The pieces work, largely, because Robert Griffin is working so far. If Todd Marinovich had played in a couple of Pro Bowls and taken the Raiders to a Super Bowl win, we’d be hailing Marv as a genius and shaper of young men. He’d probably be making five figures per appearance on the banquet circuit and have his own book deal.

Wrote Times reporter Rich Campbell, “The coach-athlete element of Robert’s relationship with his dad fascinates me. I’m reluctant to use the word ‘abnormal’ because that implies connotations that, frankly, I don’t care to apply, but the intensity of their training was extraordinary. . . . I asked myself why Robert Jr.’s strictness, oversight and intensity worked for Robert III when it hasn’t worked for so many other father-son relationships. . . . The answer to the question, it turns out, tells us the most important thing about Robert III: He wants to be great. He deeply wants it. His relationship with his dad worked because he wanted to be pushed in ways that wouldn’t work for many others.”⁴

“Now I look back on it and can’t believe I did some of that stuff,” Griffin III says in the same piece. “If you asked me to do some of that stuff today I probably wouldn’t just because of where I am. But the only reason I’m where I am today is because I did that stuff back then. It created my foundation to be the athlete that I am today, whether it’s running, [or] jumping.”⁵

Robert Griffin III encouraged his parents to move with him to Washington DC after he was drafted by the Redskins, and they rent a townhouse in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Griffin Jr. works a bureaucratic government job, and Griffin’s mother, Jackie, touches up his trademark braids every two weeks.

The rising celebrity star of Griffin’s parents is indicative of where our culture has come. Allen Iverson’s mother—a courtside fixture wearing her son’s jersey—made the celebrity NBA mother a mainstream entity. In the Times, there are photographs of Griffin’s father by his son’s side in the ubiquitous NFL draft holding-up-the-jersey photograph, and there are pictures aplenty of the elder Griffins, decked out in jerseys and RG3 gear at FedExField. Bob and Pam Tebow were an integral part of the Tebow public brand, leading up to the draft and even as a part of his NFL career. Family values, as a concept, appears to be making a comeback.

Griffin’s parents are savvy enough to know that their über-involvement and unorthodox training methods may be a turnoff to some, and that they have to work to mitigate “Little League Parent” accusations. But the jury on their son is still out. If he becomes the next Steve Young, they’ll look like geniuses. If he becomes the next Vince Young (a Rookie of the Year recipient and a subsequent NFL washout, currently unemployed), they’ll look . . . well . . . like something else.

“You know how some of the time you have parents who live through their kids?” Jackie Griffin said in the piece. “That wasn’t our goal.”⁶

As far as I can tell, Griffin worked like an animal and engineered his life so that it would turn out pretty much exactly the way that it’s turned out so far. Few people would be willing to put in the work that Griffin put in along the way. He was also, clearly, blessed with an outsized portion of God-given raw talent and has been allowed by God to thus far navigate the puzzle of high school, recruitment, injury, coaching, and other outside factors almost perfectly.

These are the things you already know if you’re a Redskins/RG3 follower: He was born in Okinawa, Japan, to army sergeants. The family lived for a time near Tacoma, Washington, and in New Orleans, Louisiana, before settling in Copperas Cove, Texas, which happened to be home to the kind of Texas high school football powerhouse that makes shows like Friday Night Lights interesting. I don’t know how the Griffins settled in Copperas Cove. The fact is, we now live in a world where parents move their families to make more strategic high school football and recruitment decisions. Gone are the days of a kid growing up in a small town in Indiana, then just playing football for the high school in that small town in Indiana. If the kid has potential, chances are his father finagles a job transfer so that his son can play for the big high school in the well-heeled suburb so as to better his chances for a college scholarship. It’s a new era, for better or worse.

The most impressive collection of high school game film I’ve ever personally viewed belonged to Mississippi legend Marcus Dupree, whose Philadelphia (MS) high school film had a “man amongst boys” quality to it, as the 6-foot-2-inch, 230-pound Dupree ran over, around, and away from high school kids on grainy, black-and-white Super 8 stock. Griffin’s Copperas Cove film has a completely different quality. In it, we see Griffin displaying much of the same fluidity and polish we now see on Sunday afternoons. The same smooth drops. The same eyes perpetually upfield, where they’re supposed to be. The same slick play-action fakes. The same well-timed, athletic scrambles. We see Griffin doing these things with talented teammates, many of whom went on to college careers, in college-quality high school stadiums. There is a polish and quality to Texas high school football that is indeed unparalleled. Urban Meyer once called it “Grown Man Football.” I played small-college football and am convinced that Griffin’s high school team would have mopped the field with any college team I was a part of. They looked like grown men.

Perennially ranked in the state standings, Copperas Cove’s dedicated football website boasts District Championships in 2004, 2005, 2008, and 2011. It shows big, glossy photos of the school’s state-of-the-art football facilities and boasts long lists of players, by graduating class, who went on to play college football. Griffin’s graduating class, 2007, was relatively light on college talent, sending only eleven players to the next level, but the 2008 class put twenty-four players on college rosters.⁷ The Cove’s weight room measures ten thousand square feet, making it roughly three times bigger than that of the Washington Redskins’.

While at Copperas Cove, Griffin was a three-sport star (football, basketball, track). In two seasons as a starting quarterback, Griffin rushed for a total of 2,161 yards and 32 touchdowns while passing for 3,357 yards and 41 touchdowns with 9 interceptions. As a senior, Copperas Cove was 13-2 but lost in the 4A state championship game. In track, Griffin broke state records for the 110-meter and 300-meter hurdles, and as a junior he was named to the USA Today All-USA track-and-field team. He also received the Gatorade Boys Texas Track and Field Athlete of the Year Award.

To add to the mythic quality of all this, Griffin was also class president and ranked seventh in his graduating class. Truth be told, it’s an experience that few mere mortals can understand, much less relate to.

For the sake of perspective, consider that before Robert Griffin arrived, Baylor University football hadn’t appeared in a bowl game since 1994. They hadn’t made a Top 25 rankings appearance since 1986. Baylor’s last non-kicker consensus All-American was defensive lineman Santana Dotson in 1991. In 2009, when Griffin was injured in Week 3, they struggled to a 4-8 overall record. It’s not much of a stretch, then, to say that Robert Griffin III put Baylor football on the map; and it also goes without saying that carrying the hopes of a program on one’s shoulders comes with a great deal of pressure.

I interviewed Michigan high school football legend and former Notre Dame quarterback Evan Sharpley about the pressures that come with being the starting quarterback at a high profile program. Sharpley played quarterback at Notre Dame between megastars Brady Quinn and Jimmy Clausen, and just a few years postgraduation, now eats unnoticed in a Michigan diner as we talk.

“I think the toughest part about playing that position at that level is the potential for letting down your friends and family,” he said. “You’ve got the entire program on your shoulders, and you can’t help but think, ‘What if I fail? Or what if I don’t succeed?’ I think with Robert his background prepared him . . . and his commitment to the process each week has allowed him to rise above that. For me, I immersed myself in a lot of different things . . . things that kept me sane. I threw myself into my classroom studies, I got involved with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and I fell in love with working out and getting the most out of my body. I really lost myself in those things, and it helped me to deal with the pressure.”⁸

A four-star recruit with 4.4 speed and a rocket arm, Griffin was the biggest deal on campus the moment he arrived, much like he was the biggest deal in Washington even before he officially arrived as the team’s first-round draft choice. Griffin was being pursued by higher-profile schools like Tennessee, Stanford, Nebraska, and Oregon, where he would have been a perfect choice to pilot Chip Kelly’s high-octane offense. He ended up being the perfect player to pilot Art Briles’s own high-octane, record-setting offense—brought over from the University of Houston where he coached prior to taking the Baylor job. So why did Griffin choose Baylor? We may never know, but it’s clear that he has left an indelible mark on the university.

Griffin arrived at Baylor after graduating high school early, in the spring of 2008. He immediately won a Big 12 track-and-field title in the 400-meter hurdles and, oh yeah, was a semifinalist in hurdles at the 2008 Olympic Trials. Not bad for a college freshman.

As a true freshman, Griffin started and guided the Bears to a 4-8 record, grabbing Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year honors. In a 41-21 upset over Texas A&M, the eighteen-year-old Griffin showed the poise and confidence that would mark his tenure at Baylor, throwing for 2 long touchdowns and adding 56 rushing yards. The die had been cast and optimism ran high, but Griffin missed most of the 2009 season, sustaining a torn ACL in the third game of the season. Without him, the team struggled to another disappointing 4-8 record.

Perhaps the most impressive showpieces in Griffin’s college career were back-to-back victories over the University of Texas, which has long been the king of college football programs in the state. In 2011, Texas visited Baylor on Senior Day in a game in which the Heisman Trophy may have hung in the balance.

“We thought if we came out with a victory, we could win the Heisman. It’s not just about me, it’s about all of Baylor Nation,” Griffin said. “I don’t know if you can say we deserve it, but [it] would definitely be warranted.”⁹

Wearing their all-green uniforms, and after a rousing introduction complete with what are now major college football staples—bigger-than-life images of each player on a Jumbotron—Griffin came out and gave a signature performance that sealed Baylor’s first 9-win season since 1986. Griffin had to have a big day to cover for a Baylor defense that had already given up 30 or more points eight times in the 2011 season.

On the second play from scrimmage, Griffin eluded the rush, set himself, and threw a deep scoring strike to Kendall Wright, now a member of the Tennessee Titans. They would never look back. Griffin would pass for 320 yards with touchdown strikes of 59 and 39 yards. His first touchdown run, just before the half, gave Baylor the lead; and his second scoring run in the second half salted the game away.

“He’s the most dynamic player in the NCAA,” said senior running back Terrance Ganaway, who set a Baylor record for rushing yards in a season during the game.¹⁰

“Not too many years ago, they said Baylor would never be 9-3, would never beat Texas, would never beat Oklahoma,” Griffin told the media. “Why not [win the Heisman]?”¹¹

It’s hard to measure the impact of a win like this on a program like Baylor’s. All the major conferences have schools like these—the Baylors, the Purdues, the Northwesterns, the Iowa States—programs that toil in obscurity for years until a signature player or coach arrives to lead them to the Promised Land and a few moments in the sun. Baylor’s moment was 2011.

Griffin’s final college game, the 2011 Alamo Bowl versus Washington, was the second highest-scoring college bowl game ever and may in many ways captured the spirit of the Griffin era at Baylor. Though he was only average that evening—Griffin was 24-33 for 259 yards and a scoring strike that came on the first drive of the game—the ending was a memorable one for Baylor fans and the perfect note on which to exit the college stage.

ESPN cameras captured Griffin strolling through the bowels of the stadium before the game, wearing the ubiquitous headphones and sunglasses in the building. He already looked the part of the professional. “He’s all man,” said ESPN analyst Chris Spielman before the game after lauding Griffin’s elusiveness and downfield vision.

“This thing truly could go to over 1,000 total yards and over 100 points when it’s all said and done,” said Spielman of the two high-powered offenses and something-to-be-desired defenses involved. “If so I might take a nosedive off the top of the Alamo Dome,” added the legendary linebacker.

“He’s a very disciplined person . . . very dedicated,” said head coach Art Briles of Griffin on the field before the game. He entered the game with 36 touchdown passes (with only 6 interceptions) and another 9 passes on the ground.

On the first play of the game, Baylor tried a trick play—an inside shovel pass to Kendall Wright that was blown up by Washington. On his second play from scrimmage, Griffin was flushed from the pocket but flicked the ball downfield 25 yards on a rope for a first down. It’s the kind of play that makes scouts swoon—escapability, poise, and arm talent all on display in the same play. Later in the series fans got a feel for Griffin’s in-pocket mechanics as well. On a third down, he received a shotgun snap, spotted a zone-blitz from the Washington defense, and calmly bounced on his toes until a short receiver came open. Griffin’s base was always wide, and his lead foot pointed directly at a receiver on his follow-through. Mechanics like these allowed Griffin to connect on an astonishing 72.4 percent of his passes as a senior. Granted, some of that percentage can be attributed to Art Briles’s high-percentage, passcentric offense; but hitting at that rate in any offense is impressive.

We also saw Griffin connect off play-action, from under center. He got a three-deep zone look from the Washington defense and took an easy 8-yard out. Baylor’s no-huddle shotgun pace was blistering, and Washington’s defensive line—probably due to a mix of adrenaline and pace—was already standing with hands on hips, and more importantly, standing up and getting pushed around at the line of scrimmage.

The tape also gives one an appreciation for the kinds of hits Griffin has taken as a collegian. He runs the ball and takes shots from Washington’s defenders. They’re the kind of shots that provide one of the only scouting red flags on Griffin. How long will he last? Every hard shot a ball carrier takes will take a little bit of life out of that player for the long haul and increase the chance of injury.

Baylor takes advantage of Washington’s defensive confusion and runs for a first down on a fourth-and-1 play. Immediately following, Griffin hits Kendall Wright for a touchdown. Griffin hit Wright in the flat, and Wright’s wiggle and strength took over. “I see perfection out of him,” said Spielman of Griffin after the first drive. Following what is, for Baylor, a semileisurely (four-minute) opening drive, the game would turn into a track meet.

Big scoring plays included a 56-yard touchdown run by Washington running back Chris Polk, an 80-yard touchdown catch by Washington’s Jermaine Kearse two plays into the second half, and an 89-yard scoring rumble by Baylor’s Terrance Ganaway. Kearse struck again, catching and running for 60 yards before getting dragged down, setting up Washington quarterback Keith Price’s fourth touchdown toss during the next play.

Ganaway’s 43-yard scoring run with just over two minutes remaining sealed the victory for Baylor, and sealed their first 10-win season since 1980. The final scoreboard read Baylor 67, Washington 56. “That was crazy,” said Briles, aptly, after the game.

The victory was Baylor’s first bowl win since 1992. By that time, Griffin had amassed a truckload of personal accolades, taking home the Davey O’Brien Award, the Manning Award, and the Associated Press Player of the Year Award in addition to the Heisman. He was also an Academic All-American in 2010 and 2011. Griffin finished his college career with an astonishing 78 touchdown passes, against only 17 interceptions. He added another 32 touchdowns on the ground, rushing for over 2,100 yards—even more impressive considering that the NCAA counts sacks against a quarterback’s rushing yards.

After the game, Griffin paraded the Alamo Bowl trophy around the field before delivering it to his mother in the first row of the stands, shouting, “We went out in style!” The words were prophetic. Griffin walked off the field to chants of “One more year!” from the Baylor faithful. They could plead, but the handwriting was already on the wall. There wouldn’t be another year.

A December 2012 feature in Sports Business Daily estimated that Griffin’s Heisman Trophy was worth an additional $250 million in donations, licensing fees, and ticket sales. Baylor reports a 10 percent increase in giving to the university in the wake of Griffin’s success and has plans to break ground on a brand-new, $250-million stadium project.¹²

“It has elevated us on a national level that has never been seen by Baylor University,” head coach Art Briles told Sports Illustrated when asked about Griffin’s impact on the school. “If you ask anybody in the state of Washington or Florida or New York, they’re going to know something about Baylor athletics. He’s allowed us to have access to every high school student-athlete in America who aspires to play college football at the highest level.”¹³

In a study published by ESPN.com in 2007, I analyzed every quarterback drafted in the first round in a fifteen-year period, between 1989 and 2003. I studied them with the hopes of determining how risky it was to draft a signal caller in the first round, and how likely it was that that player would be a bust. I set the bust metric at 80 games played in the league and a positive touchdown-to-interception ratio. Quarterbacks who won Super Bowls but were unspectacular like Trent Dilfer or who played in Pro Bowls got special consideration as well. The list of first-round busts is long and diverse, and includes such names as Andre Ware, who played in a gimmicky college offense; Dan McGwire, who was 6 feet 8 inches tall; Rick Mirer, who was overhyped in the grand tradition of overhyping Notre Dame quarterbacks; David Klingler, who played in the same gimmicky offense as Ware; and Heath Shuler, Tommy Maddox, and Jim Druckenmiller, just to name a few. For every franchise quarterback like Troy Aikman, there was a Shuler. Even solid starters like Kerry Collins, Donovan McNabb, and Steve McNair (a borderline star) were in seemingly short supply. In all, according to my criteria at least, 53 percent of all quarterbacks drafted in the first round were busts. So why were each of 2012’s first-rounders playing at such a high level?

I asked Evan Sharpley why, when historically rookie quarterbacks have struggled, the rookie class of 2012 seemed to be excelling—with Griffin leading the way. “I think the nature of college football has changed in that more programs are utilizing pro-style principles in their offenses,” Sharpley said. “A lot of guys are learning more of the Xs and Os in college, so that they’re allowed to just step in and play the game of football at the pro level. I also think that in the past pro coaches were staunch about what they wanted to run, whereas now they seem to be throwing the playbook at rookies in chunks rather than all at once.”

Quarterback guru Terry Shea’s résumé includes stints as a quarterback coach with the Kansas City Chiefs, offensive coordinator with the Chicago Bears, and head coaching at San José State and Rutgers. Of late, he’s been in the now-booming business of readying NFL quarterbacking prospects for the draft and NFL scouting combine. Typically, after graduation, quarterbacks will select a guru—others in this cottage industry include former NFL journeymen Steve DeBerg and Chris Weinke—and then spend up to ten weeks with their coaches, working on everything from interviewing skills to on-field decision making. Shea has worked with number one overall picks Sam Bradford and Matthew Stafford, as well as Brady Quinn and Josh Freeman. He worked with Kansas State sensation Collin Klein in the offseason before Klein’s final year as a collegian and was, in fact, on the phone with Klein’s father when I caught up with him.

“I’m with a player eight or nine hours a day for a ten-week period, so there’s the potential for developing a unique relationship with that player,” Shea explains. “What I have to offer having been in the NFL is a chance to transfer some of that knowledge to players so that their learning curve can be reduced.”¹⁴

Shea worked with Robert Griffin III at the Athlete’s Performance Institute in Arizona and remembers the impression Griffin made as soon as he hit the practice field.

“What grabbed me immediately was his ability to embrace you and make you feel special,” he says. “When I walked out onto the practice field, Robert immediately said, ‘Hey, Coach, I’ve been waiting for you—let’s get started!’ Whether he was greeting an elderly man or an eight-year-old peewee football player, Robert’s enthusiasm was infectious.”¹⁵

Because he had worked with so many NFL players, I asked Shea what stood out to him about Griffin and to what we could attribute his early NFL success.

“His coachability was an A+,” he says. “Robert can listen with tremendous focus. You can give him a technique in the meeting room or on the chalkboard and he’ll immediately capture it physically on the practice field. He doesn’t need a lot of repetitions, and he has a skill set that can make those things happen.

“Physically, he reminds me of Matthew Stafford in that he has a quick arm and the ball just jumps out of his hand. With Stafford’s skill set, he could really snap at his release point. Robert has the same thing, and that physical attribute speaks highly of what makes one quarterback better than another. Off the field, his humility reminds me of Sam Bradford. They’re both Heisman Trophy winners, but that was never mentioned and never brought out with either of them. Leadership-wise, he reminds me of a quarterback I coached in Kansas City named Trent Green who was a special game-day leader. You could see those same things in Robert at his pro day, in the way that he led and directed his teammates. And the fact that the Washington Redskins have named him—a rookie—a team captain is absolutely unprecedented.”¹⁶

There’s something very deliberate, positive, and grandfatherly in the way that Shea speaks about his quarterbacks. He has devoted his life and his career to the craft of quarterbacking, and his fingerprints are on the product that is Robert Griffin III. I ask him, in particular, about Griffin’s highly developed play-action passing skills.

“That’s something we addressed when Robert was with me, and it’s one of my signatures as a coach,” Shea explains. “I try to make my players magicians with the football, meaning whether they’re handing off to a running back or carrying out a fake, everything looks the same. When I watch tape of Robert, I marvel at his ability to make the ball disappear. When we were practicing on the field, I’d critique him to drive for five steps after a handoff and not peek back at the ball. There is nothing lazy about Robert’s game, and if the Redskins demand it, he’ll do it.”¹⁷

I suggest to Shea that Griffin’s supreme confidence and athletic ability enable him to have such confidence in his play-action game. But regarding athleticism, there is the dubious record of running quarterbacks burning out early and failing to win titles.

“My biggest question is whether the quarterback is a passer first and a runner second,” Shea says. “You win with your arm, but you keep games alive with your legs. When Steve Young developed his skill, he was a passer first and a runner second. That way you have a longer shelf life and greater potential to be productive in the league. Robert is an innately strong athlete and has a tremendously strong frame that should keep him healthy, provided he commits to being a passer first.”¹⁸

Shea suggests that the proclivity toward passing in today’s college programs results in passers who are more ready to step in and succeed at the pro level.

“I once asked Robert how many balls he threw in a typical practice at Baylor, and he said 150–175. That’s a lot of throws. I really believe that college quarterbacks come out having thrown so many more passes in competitive situations than their predecessors in past eras. Many of these colleges are pass-first offenses in the Bill Walsh style. They use the pass to set up the run. Some of these guys throw the ball 55 times a game, and they’re making different kinds of throws. They’re touching the ball, driving the ball, and they’re probably throwing 200 to 300 more passes in their careers in game situations than the guys who came out a decade ago. When you take bright, intelligent quarterbacks like Sam Bradford and Robert Griffin, and combine it with those reps . . . you’re going to get a pretty polished product.

“But there’s a ceiling to how much you can study tape and how much you can practice. There’s an innate quality that the great quarterbacks have. I believe it comes down to vision, and the great ones see in three dimensions. With Trent Green, it was almost like he saw things in slow motion. He’d come off the field during a game and tell me what he saw, and then when I’d sit down to watch the film on Monday morning, it was exactly what he saw in game speed. He was amazing. I’d say, ‘Man, how did you see that?’ Robert is the same way.”¹⁹