Last Sunday, the Vikings got a chance to see first-hand what Robert Griffin III is capable of doing at the NFL level. RG3 put the team on his back on a day where the Redskins need a boatload of points to win. He rushed for 138 yards and two touchdowns and threw for another 182 and a score. The Vikings were impressed, but Jared Allen made sure to knock the rookie down a peg during his postgame comments.
“I’m not going to crown him anything yet,” Allen told Comcast SportsNet on Sunday. “He had a good game. Hats off to him, he ran really well. But to be great in this league, you have to do it for years and years and years. So, I wish him all the best, except next time when we play him.”
As D.C. Sports Bog pointed out, Griffin’s 138 yards rushing were a Redskins franchise record for rushing yards by a quarterback in a game. Through six games, he is already the franchise record-holder for rushing yards by a quarterback in a single season with 379. One of his runs on Sunday was a 76-yard touchdown scamper — the longest run by an NFL quarterback in over 15 years.
While RG3 was impressive on Sunday, Allen is likely speaking for a number of veterans in not being ready to “crown” him. Griffin is obviously a viable NFL starter and may have earned the right to be called RG3 by some rival opponents, but the NFL season is more about how you finish than how you start. If he continues on the path he’s started out on, the respect will continue to grow.
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