Cleveland Browns: Keeping RG3’s performance in context
Cleveland Browns quarterback Robert Griffin III had a great performance against the Atlanta Falcons Thursday night.
The Cleveland Browns returned to FirstEnergy Stadium Thursday night for the preseason home opener, falling to the Atlanta Falcons by the score of 24-13.
Wins and losses are meaningless this time of year, which is why Browns fans are, for the most part, excited about what happened on the field last night.
While the defense clearly has a lot of work to do before the season begins, the first-team offense flashed some life last night in the first half.
The star of the show was Robert Griffin III, who went 6 for 8 with two beautiful touchdown passes.
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The touchdown passes to Terrelle Pryor and Gary Barnidge were perfect passes from Griffin, but we must remember this is a small sample size in a preseason game.
This is not to take away from Griffin’s performance. Those two passes, along with his running ability, is exciting for Browns fans used to the revolving door of quarterbacks in town. Griffin has the ability to be a a great quarterback once again, but it is too early to say he has already reached that point in 2016. Far too early.
As broadcaster Solomon Wilcots pointed out last night, preseason games are extensions of practice. Teams work on specific aspects of the game plan, while being careful as not to reveal too much before the regular season begins.
So while Griffin looked great, we all have to remember the fact this was a preseason game. The Falcons’ defense is still not in regular-season-mode yet, and may have been caught off guard based on a lack of a reliable scouting report of Pryor.
Then there is the fact Griffin only threw eight passes. This small sample was bound to be judged no matter how he played, even though a quarterback may throw eight passes in one quarter during a regular season game, as opposed to an entire game.
The narrative may be completely different if Pryor or Barnidge dropped those passes, and we could be talking about another scoreless night from Griffin. But since the passes went for touchdowns, a quarter-plus of play was put in the context of being an overall great performance.
It was indeed a solid performance, but we need to see much more of Griffin before we can declare him to be the next great quarterback in Cleveland. No one is hoping to see him fail, but it is just too hard on the mind to get the hopes up, only to see them dashed before 2017 even appears on the calendar.
The Browns still have two more preseason games before the regular season begins September 11 in Philadelphia, but it still may take until October until we can all get a good read on Griffin’s potential.
Next: 3 defensive takeaways from loss to Falcons
But for now, let’s enjoy the success he had Thursday night while still remembering he has a long way to go before he can be deemed the Browns’ savior.