A day after Washington receiver Pierre Garcon said quarterback Robert Griffin III isn’t as fast as last year because he’s wearing a knee brace now, Griffin responded by saying he’ll race Garcon to show just how fast he is.
But Garcon isn’t backing down, reiterating today that he thinks the brace is holding Griffin back.
“There’s no knee issue,” Griffin said. “I love my receiver. If he wants to race, then we can race.”
Garcon, however, says it’s obvious that you can’t run as fast with a knee brace as you can without a knee brace.
“It’s just like when you have extra equipment on,” Garcon said. “You definitely can’t move as fluid and as fast as you could if you didn’t have it on. It’s common sense, really. If you carry extra stuff on you, you’re not gonna be as fast as you were without it.”
Garcon also indicated that the decision not to play Griffin in the preseason has caused Washington’s offense to be rusty at the start of the regular season.
“It’s always tough to not have any actual preseason games and try to come into the full speed of the regular season,” Garcon said. “That definitely didn’t help us, as we can see now. But it’s a situation that you have to deal with. You don’t want to get hurt in the preseason. That’ll cause more controversy and drama around here. But you’ve got to make a decision and live with it. We made the decision not to play him in preseason. Now we’re living with it. We just have to get better.”
There’s no doubt about that last part: After starting the season 0-2, Washington needs to get better in a hurry.