Whoever had Week 1 in the Robert Griffin III Injury Pool, raise your hand.
OK, not everybody at once.
In a development that will shock precisely no one who has watched the NFL’s most brittle quarterback, Griffin’s availability for the next several weeks — and conceivably the rest of the season — was wiped out after he was injured late in the woeful Browns’ 29-10 season-opening loss to the Eagles on Sunday.
Following an MRI exam Monday, NFL Network reported Griffin with a fractured coracoid bone in his left (non-throwing) shoulder. He will not have surgery and will be re-evaluated in three to four weeks, according to the report.
He can be activated off IR, though he must miss at least six weeks of practice and a minimum of eight games. That means he would resurface Week 10 at the earliest.
In other words, just another day in the tortured NFL existence of RG3, who hasn’t shown the ability to stay healthy since practically the first month of his first regular season in the league four years ago.
Griffin stayed upright long enough that magical season with the Redskins to win the Offensive Rookie of the Year award, but the former Baylor star endured enough bumps and bruises — and worse — that season to wonder if he could make it through an entire year again.
Griffin is as much of a conundrum for the Browns as he was for the Redskins. Griffin is at his best as a fearless scrambler, but as we have seen repeatedly, that style and his slight body leave him extremely vulnerable to big, injury-causing hits. And it seems far too late in his career to make Griffin a pocket passer, in large part because he still shows no pocket awareness or the ability to grasp a complex, pro-style offense.
Griffin’s stubbornness showed itself again Sunday. The play on which he was injured ended in a hit on a scramble that was totally avoidable if Griffin had slid instead of trying to scramble out of bounds.
Once again, it was proof that Griffin will never learn. It probably won’t be much longer before NFL teams learn to avoid signing him.