By Brad Biggs, National Football Post
A bit of a stir was caused last week when Dr. James Andrews called Robert Griffin III “superhuman” in his recovery from ACL reconstructive surgery.
Andrews’ comments, which he also made about running back Marcus Lattimore, a prospect for next month’s NFL draft, create unnecessarily high expectations for the players in their rehabilitations. It’s unfair to do anything that would draw parallels to the freakish return made by Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson last year.
Griffin has weighed in on his status, texting a message to ESPN anchor Trey Wingo. Here is the progress report:
“My knee is getting better every day. The doctors say I'm ahead of schedule. My goal is to return healthy in week one but if I'm not ready then i will wait until i am, however long that is. My first NFL season and my injury that ended it showed me a lot about the league, my team and myself. i know where my responsibility is within the dilemma that led to me having surgery to repair my knee and all parties involved know their responsibilities as well. I m looking forward to playing the game we all love so much again and not behind at the negative. thanks for the overwhelming level of support that i've received, sic em bears and hail to the redskins!!”
We’ll see if Griffin can accomplish the goal Peterson did of being ready for the season opener. In the meantime, Kirk Cousins will handle all of the first team reps for the Redskins in the offseason program that will begin in the middle of next month. Maybe by then we’ll have another status update from Griffin.
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Brad Biggs covers the Bears for the Chicago Tribune