The dramatic turns of Robert Griffin III, from Baylor Heisman Trophy winner to rookie Redskins wonder to injured bust to soon-to-be free agent without a home, will soon proceed with a nice rebound for the quarterback: NFL’s hottest commodity.
Many around the league believe the one-time franchise savior can be a two-time franchise savior, with the free-agent market heating up for the 26-year-old. According to Bleacher Report, there are “at least 10″ and ”maybe 15″ teams that are taking a long, hard look at the athletic marvel who fizzled in record time with Washington.
Teams believe they can rekindle what was lost after his 2013 torn LCL and ACL, when he returned a battered man and eventually a benched man. And there’s one quarterback-starved team that can offer Griffin everything he’s looking for: the Texans.
RG3 sees Houston as a long-term destination, according to Yahoo, as do many free-agent (and draft-eligible) quarterbacks. The Texans, whose entire run in Houston has been marked by a dearth of quality quarterback play, possess everything a shaky signal-caller could want: They don’t have anyone signed with whom to seriously compete; they were a playoff team last year with a quality base roster, just no one to lead it; the AFC South has terrible defenses; and Houston is more than $42 million below the cap. According to Yahoo, the first quarterback domino to drop — whoever it will be — likely will land in Houston, because that’s where the talents want to play.
And with a talent like Griffin, Houston is interested. The dual threat took the league by storm in 2012, lifting the hapless Redskins into the playoffs in one of the greatest rookie displays in NFL history.
The team’s hope, though, crashed with Griffin’s knee in that season’s wild-card playoff loss to Seattle, and surgery followed. 2013 saw a diminished RG3 start 13 woeful games before being pulled by Mike Shanahan, and 2014 saw more injuries and less production. Griffin didn’t see a snap in 2015, when Kirk Cousins rose from backup to claim his job.
But the NFL sees a 26-year-old who, if healthy, still can be the electric player who captured the imaginations of the nation’s capital for a season. A player who passed for 20 touchdowns to just five interceptions in 2012, when he also ran for 815 yards and seven more scores.
He’s gone from star to bust to project, but a project who’s shown he can cut it. For a Texans team that started Brian Hoyer (15-for-34, four INTs) in a 30-0 playoff loss to the Chiefs last season, that’s tempting.
