RG3 wants to join #49ers to mentor Trey Lance pic.twitter.com/qqNjG2GCkn
— ❌ADAM❌ (@ARock559) May 2, 2021
Time is a flat circle, as they say. Kyle Shanahan has his quarterback for the long haul in Trey Lance, and who better to mentor him than a former top-three overall pick that used to play under Shanahan, Robert Griffin III? If you’re looking at it through that lens, sure, it makes perfect sense.
It makes perfect sense in the same way getting back together with someone you never liked makes perfect sense. Because Griffin III was largely a headache for the Shanahans.
Here’s a little throwback to the RG3 era in Washington, from a report titled “RGIII’s Stubbornness and His Father’s Interference Bedevil Shanahan, Redskins”:
“Griffin’s stubbornness was crystallized by a moment in a recent game. After he threw an errant pass and the offensive series ended, he came to the sideline and talked with quarterbacks coach Matt LaFleur, who was in the coaches booth (not on the sideline as originally reported here).
LaFleur, a former quarterback who never played in the NFL but has coached in the league for six years, began explaining to Griffin that part of the problem with the throw was his poor footwork, an issue that many observers around the league have noted about Griffin as he has struggled this season. As LaFleur continued to talk, Griffin grew impatient and brushed off the instruction.
“I just have to make that throw,” Griffin said, according to two team sources who were aware of the conversation. The reaction was not considered mean-spirited, but it was dismissive and spoke to the larger issue of how difficult Griffin has become to coach this season as he has struggled with physical limitations from his knee injury at the end of the 2012 playoffs.
In addition, Griffin’s father has increasingly become the kind of nuisance that some people warned NFL executives about before the 2012 draft. In recent weeks, according to two sources close to the situation, the elder Griffin has politicked Snyder to hire Baylor coach Art Briles, who coached the younger Griffin to a Heisman Trophy, to replace Shanahan.”
There are myriad other reports that Mike Shanahan was bothered by Dan Snyder’s discernible obsession with Griffin III, and altogether ignored Kirk Cousins, who the Shanahans are well-documented as loving.
Seems… not great!
But that reported schism hasn’t stopped Griffin III, a free agent, from offering his services to the 49ers. While assessing their selection of Trey Lance, he claimed he’s the best option to train him up.
“To be honest with you, I don’t think they have a guy on the roster that would be better situated than myself to come in and mentor the kid,” Griffin III said. “Who knows, maybe there’s a reunion in store with the Shanahans.”
Currently, the 49ers have five quarterbacks on the roster in Lance, Jimmy Garoppolo, Josh Rosen, Josh Johnson and Nate Sudfeld. But hey, as the great philosopher Kevin Garnett once said, “Anything is possibiiiiiiiiiiile.”