Robert Griffin III And The Birth Of More Criticism

Robert Griffin III can't catch a break let alone a dream. The man who once cruised through a 7-game win streak and a division title now can't cruise the streets singing his favorite Michael Jackson tune without the cast of Thriller waiting to crawl out of the shadows and criticize him for it. The absurd fact that fans commented on a video of Griffin, on his way to put in work, to remind him that he needs to put in work made it no surprise that they would use yesterday's pregnancy announcement to do the same. Please, make it stop.

I get it. You're mad. In 2012, you made an emotional investment. The hype hooked you and you put all of your coins in this stock. With only one good year out of three, you're still looking for a return on your investment. Whether that return comes or not will not be dictated by a song this man chooses to sing on the way to a work out or for, and I can't believe I'm uttering this, becoming a father. Please, learn to separate the player from the person.

In a matter of three years, Robert Griffin III has gone from being unable to stop fans from flooding his house with gifts off his wedding registry to being told he can't have a child until he watches more film. The fickleness would be humorous if it wasn't so real. The basic idea that a child would torpedo Griffin's career is as funny as it is preposterous. There are plenty of men in this world that have children and still work hard every day. I know....it's shocking. In fact, did you know some other quarterbacks around the league are fathers? Oh, the depravity.

The internet is a powerful place and I'm embarassed to admit it forced me to look into these "stats." I took a look at the 32 QBs that started the most games for their team. 17 quarterbacks had children and 15 of them did not.

Total QB rating for quarterbacks with children in 2014? 91.6

Total QB rating for quarterbacks without children in 2014? 88.0

Minimal difference.

Total win percentage for quarterbacks with children in 2014? 54.3%

Total win percentage for quarterbacks without children in 2014? 48.7%

Larger difference but favors the QB with children.

Basically, saying a child will certainly hurt Griffin's on-field performance is as asinine as me pointing to the win percentage above and implying he is doing it to get better. Now, I'm not a stats whiz and maybe Pro Football Focus or someone with way more time on their hands than I can come in and break down the metrics even further into QB ratings before, during, after their child, how old each QB was when they had a child, success of younger vs. older QB dads, etc. but in short, the numbers don't matter. Each person is their own individual case.

As one of the harsher critics of Griffin on-the-field, if he doesn't get better, it won't be because of a child, it'll be because he was never going to get better. Posting pictures isn't going to affect his throw on the post route. Digging in the sandbox isn't going to affect his throw on the dig route. The picture of Robert Griffin III kissing his wife's stomach should be met with nothing but one thing: Congratulations. If you feel the need to muster anything along the opposite of that, please do some soul-searching. Hopefully, this eliminates the crowd that is waiting for the baby to be born so they can subract nine months, figure out what game it was around and display fake-outrage about how Robert could even think about procreating at a time like that.

Congratulations, Robert.