In the days after Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III supplanted the third-string option with the hot hand, there were no reports of disagreement or dissension or dysfunction in the locker room.
It’s game day, and here it all comes.
ESPN has gone all in on the notion that the team is coming apart at the seams as Griffin returns to the starting lineup, with Adam Schefter reporting that folks in the organization believe that the decision to put Griffin back into the lineup came from owner Daniel Snyder or team president/G.M. Bruce Allen, and not from coach Jay Gruden. (Washington spokesman Tony Wyllie vehemently denied that to Schefter.)
That perception has apparently become a problem in the locker room. Britt McHenry of ESPN, after suggesting that teammates deliberately were loud in the locker room to disrupt Griffin’s effort to talk to reporters this week, said that Griffin has “alienated” his teammates.
It’s been a common theme for Griffin. Periodic reports and rumblings have emerged that other players resent the special treatment he has gotten since arriving with the fanfare of three first-round picks and a second-round pick in 2012.
Unless and until Griffin plays like he did as a rookie, those issues will continue. Maybe they’ll continue even if he plays well.
Maybe, as Russell Wilson has learned in Seattle, petty jealously and envy will linger even after a team wins a Super Bowl.