Surviving Washington has not.
In late November, former Commanders quarterback Robert Griffin III announced that he’ll be writing an “explosive tell-all” about “the shocking mismanagement and toxic culture within the most dysfunctional professional football team in America.” Now, as reported by Eric Bickel of 106.7 The Fan in D.C., the book is dead.
Per Bickel, Griffin’s book -- Surviving Washington -- is no longer in the works. Co-author Gary Myers, via Bickel, has moved on. An unnamed source told 106.7 The Fan that Griffin had “second thoughts” about writing the book, which was due to be published in August.
Griffin’s past tweets about the book have been deleted, and the preorder link on the publisher’s website is gone.
In his comments about the book, Griffin hinted that he witnessed sexual harassment within the organization. When pressed on the subject, he suggested that he was actually a victim. He never elaborated on that point.
Apparently, he never will. Or, if he does, it won’t happen in book form.
We contacted Myers for confirmation. He said that he has been instructed to refer all questions to Griffin and his literary agent. We have sent his literary agent a request for comment/clarification, but we have not yet received a response.
The plug can get pulled on a book project for various reasons. In this case, it’s possible that Griffin and the publisher feared potential litigation from Washington owner Daniel Snyder. It could be that Griffin’s current employer, ESPN, nudged him away from taking such direct and inflammatory shots at one of the teams with which ESPN does business. (Once upon a time, the NFL twisted ESPN’s arm into dropping the show Playmakers, which is precisely why the title of my new book is Playmakers.)
Whatever the reason, Griffin hasn’t simply canceled the plan to publish the book. He also has scrubbed away any evidence that it ever existed. We’ll wait to see whether he or his literary agent will address the situation.
Maybe Griffin will decide to tell the story of why he didn’t write a book in a book.
