Rookie revels in spotlight

ESPN would never dare ask any of the top college football teams in the US to switch their game forward from Saturday, no matter how lucrative the television contract.

The dubious privilege of being broadcast live on a Friday night when nobody in the country is watching is only reserved for the lesser universities.

Waco, Texas on the first Friday of last September should have meant just another game for the diehards. As it turned out, anyone who bothered to watch Baylor University edge out the fancied Texas Christian University at home was rewarded with a humdinger.

The full-time scoreline was typically eccentric for the college version of this sport — 50-48 — but it was the performance of Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III which really stood out.

In the year that has passed since he announced himself to the nation that evening, Griffin (or RG3 as he is now commonly known) has swiftly become the most exciting player in the NFL and the biggest story in American sport this past week.

He has achieved many feats during his relatively short stint in the spotlight and of course claiming the Heisman Trophy in the college game made him untouchable. A little harder to quantify is his effect on Washington DC, where the truly beleaguered once-great Redskins have suddenly found reason to hope for the first time in a generation.

Without going into the details, the Redskins staked their future on the Baylor star. And although he has only played one competitive game of professional football, he has all the skills and determination which a quarterback would need to turn a whole football club around.

But there is much more to this latest marketing man’s dream package than just his incredible ability to rouse a sleeping giant. Part of Griffin’s appeal is his refusal to be pigeonholed. He’s not the first black quarterback to blaze a trail at a position which has historically been the preserve of ‘All-American’ white guys from Texas, Oklahoma and other southern hotbeds of the sport.

But he is the first high-profile NFL quarterback to combine dreadlocks and SpongeBob Square-Pants socks.

Born in Japan into a US military family, he operates with astonishing discipline and a smile as wide as the Potomac River, one which belies the unique athleticism that made him last year’s standout student player. His pace is frightening and his passing ability is more than adequate for this level of the sport. It bodes well for the first ever NFL quarterback to have been born in the 1990s.

However, if this league has taught us anything over the years, it’s that dreams can quickly turn to ashes.

Rookies of all description have never had it easy when moving up into the older boys’ playground.

Even when they hit the ground running like Cam Newton did last season at the Carolina Panthers, they’re always one poor performance away from being a laughing stock.

That said, Griffin’s first real test was a stiff one, away to Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints. Not only did he pass it with flying colours, he produced unprecedented stats for a first-timer and was named offensive player of the week.

“Coach [Mike] Shanahan took the reins off of me and allowed me to do a lot of the things I was used to doing in college,” he told reporters after the shock 40-32 victory.

A further measure of his impact in the US capital is that he swiftly shunted the city’s baseball team, the Nationals, off the back pages despite the fact the World Series contenders have also acquired some of the hottest young talent in the game.

Quarterback being the pivotal position that it is, alarm bells rang last week when a record five teams announced the rookies they had recruited would be their day one starters.

Number one draft pick Andrew Luck was an obvious choice at the rebuilding Indianapolis Colts while the Miami Dolphins, Seattle Seahawks and Cleveland Browns all went for broke with little to lose and not much gained in the end.

At the other end of the spectrum, Peyton Manning’s first game in a year and a half proved there was life in the old guard yet.

He was in dominant form for his new team the Denver Broncos in a rousing victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In the end though, there was only one viable candidate for the cover of this week’s Sports Illustrated.

There will be setbacks and cheap laughs but if Robert Griffin III can rise above the challenges that lay ahead, he could bring the Redskins back to the top — where he’ll be waiting patiently.