Just how good was Robert Griffin III in Week 1?

Just how good was Robert Griffin III’s rookie debut? Unbelievable. Really, what he did was just unbelievable. It goes without saying that he will not be able to play that well every week, and some of his peers will play better in the weeks to come, but that first week was just a dozy.

Never before have five rookie quarterbacks started. First, let’s review where the starting rookie quarterbacks were drafted.

Draft#	Name	Team
1	Andrew Luck	Indianapolis
2	Robert Griffin III	Washington
8	Ryan Tannehill	Miami Dolphins
22	Brandon Weeden	Cleveland Browns
75	Russell Wilson	Seattle Seahawks

The best evaluation of a quarterback is not the normal QB rating, but the “Real QB Rating” system. It is a lot more complicated, and if you want to ready about it, you can do it here.

So, how did the five rookies do? Here are their numbers. The “Rank” is how they faired compared to the 32 starting QB’s last weekend.

Rank	Team	Real QB Rating
2	Washington	124.44
28	Seattle	53.84
30	Indianapolis	42.25
31	Miami	36.13
32	Cleveland	6.94

Of the 32 QB’s last weekend, RGIII had the second best numbers of anyone, but he was playing an away game in arguably the most difficult venue, New Orleans. Without RGIII, the other 4 rookies filled 4 of the 5 lowest slots. That’s what we expect of rookies, even ones which will someday be excellent QBs. That’s why the vast majority of QBs coming out of college are backups for one or more seasons so that they can learn the systems and get the hang of the much faster NFL. We joke about this sometimes, but no college plays at the speed of the NFL. The NFL is truly in its own league.

Let’s look at last years draft and how those starters did. Here was the draft:

Draft#	Name	Team
1	Cam Newton	Carolina
8	Jake Locker	Tennessee
10	Blaine Gabbert	Jacksonville (not starter)
12	Christian Ponder	Minnesota
25	Andy Dalton	Cincinnati

Of those five, four were starters.

Rank	Team	Real QB Rating
17	Minnesota	83.61
19	Carolina	76.78
20	Tennessee	70.79
29	Cincinnati	50.60

The best of last year’s group did not make it into the top half of QBs. The places of the two years minus RGIII is:

17, 19, 20, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32

Again, none in the top half and they had a firm hold on the worst 5 performances last week.

Some have compared RGIII to Michael Vick. How did Vick do:

Michael Vick

27 Philadelphia 54.52

Humm. Outside of the rookie and 1 year vets, Michael Vick was the worst QB in the league. Maybe RGIII will have one week in his career that bad, but I seriously doubt it.

It will be interesting to see how RGIII does the rest of the year. Remember, the Redskins were 5-11 last year. The Saints were 13-3 and were (maybe still are) considered a legitimate contender for the Super Bowl. Outside of the Redskins NFC East opponents, the Saints were the strongest team they have to play this year.

If RGIII keeps doing anything like what he did last week, he will not be vying for Rookie of the Year, but MVP. The Redskins could go from 5-11 to 11-5 in one year by moving up in the draft, betting the farm on a rookie. It looks like a good bet now.

So, it may still make my head explode, but I will keep cheering for RGIII. Yikes, what has the world come to!