{"id":5584,"date":"2013-09-07T02:20:46","date_gmt":"2013-09-06T18:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=5584"},"modified":"2013-09-07T02:20:46","modified_gmt":"2013-09-06T18:20:46","slug":"rg3-knee-injury-can-robert-griffin-iii-save-the-nfl-or-will-pro-football-destroy-him-slate-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2013\/09\/07\/rg3-knee-injury-can-robert-griffin-iii-save-the-nfl-or-will-pro-football-destroy-him-slate-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"RG3 knee injury: Can Robert Griffin III save the NFL, or will pro football destroy him? – Slate Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a widely held and probably comforting view that sports are driven by \u201ctransformative\u201d athletes, a procession of unprecedented individual talents\u2014Pel\u00e9, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods\u2014that heroically drag their games to ever-escalating heights. Occasionally these players prompt physical transformations and rule changes, but usually their impact is more nebulous. Jordan never made anyone seriously consider raising the height of the hoop. He just played basketball better and more shrewdly than anyone else, and in doing so, he altered basketball\u2019s cultural footprint, clearing the way for Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, maybe even Andrew Wiggins.
\nRobert Griffin III, 23 years old with a twice-reconstructed right knee, is, we\u2019re told, one of these transformative athletes. This offseason, Griffin has been the subject of two full-length books, Dave Sheinin\u2019s RG3: The Promise and Ted Kluck\u2019s Robert Griffin III: Athlete, Leader, Believer, and both frame Griffin as an epochal, superhuman talent. \u201cSomeday historians may look back at the Redskins\u2019 second play from scrimmage in their win over the Saints and pinpoint it as the moment offensive football changed forever in the NFL,\u201d writes Sheinin. Kluck\u2019s explicitly faith-based book goes even further, offering up RG3 as a sort of Cartesian theological proof: \u201cRG3 and football should remind us of who it is that we really worship. \u2026 There\u2019s something in Robert\u2019s game that suggests that God made him to do exactly this, exactly now.\u201d Take that, Tim Tebow.
\nGriffin was also the focus of a recent hourlong ESPN special that documented his rehabilitation process, his family life, and his insatiable thirst for Gatorade. And in May, Washington fans unearthed Griffin\u2019s wedding registry and showered him and his fianc\u00e9e with gifts, the sort of desperate affection normally lavished on a coveted free agent or a star player feared to be on the verge of departure. If Sunday football is America\u2019s secular religion, all of this hagiography and breathless devotion has made Griffin seem like some blessed apparition: precious, magical, fleeting. We love him, and because we love him, we can\u2019t stop worrying about him.
\nvia RG3 knee injury: Can Robert Griffin III save the NFL, or will pro football destroy him? – Slate Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a widely held and probably comforting view that sports are driven by \u201ctransformative\u201d athletes, a procession of unprecedented individual talents\u2014Pel\u00e9, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods\u2014that heroically drag their games to ever-escalating heights. Occasionally these players prompt physical transformations and rule changes, but usually their impact is more nebulous. Jordan never made anyone seriously consider raising … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “RG3 knee injury: Can Robert Griffin III save the NFL, or will pro football destroy him? – Slate Magazine”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reposts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}