Hours before the team announced on Friday that a doctor was keeping Robert Griffin III out of Saturday’s preseason game with a concussion, Washington coach Jay Gruden said that Griffin had been given final medical clearance from multiple doctors, and that the big remaining question was whether Griffin himself felt ready.
“He’s cleared from all the doctors, the neurologists -- they’ve been cleared. We still want to talk to the player and make sure he’s ready to go mentally and our trainers make sure they feel like he’s ready to go also. Being cleared from the doctor doesn’t mean the player feels 100 percent so we’ve got to make sure he feels ready to go, too,” Gruden said on NFL Network, in an interview taped at 2 p.m. on Friday.
Only a few hours later, the team said a doctor had checked Griffin and declared him unable to play. So what happened? The team hasn’t offered a full explanation. Given that Gruden said the remaining issue was whether Griffin “feels ready to go,” the most likely answer would seem to be that Griffin told the doctor he had a headache or some other symptom associated with a concussion, and as a result the doctor said Griffin couldn’t go.
Gruden’s comments put Griffin in a tough position. Fair or not, when a coach says a player will play if he feels ready, and then that player doesn’t play, there’s a perception that it’s the player’s fault for not being willing to tough it out and get on the field.
The doctor’s Friday evening statement suggested that Griffin could still need a week or two to recover. Of course, at this point we can’t trust anything we hear about Griffin’s status.