How Possible Is It That RG3 Busts?

I know this means I’m clinically stupid, but I think there’s a pretty good chance that Baylor QB extraordinaire Robert Griffin III busts.

Yes, that’s right.

And yes, I know this makes me stupid, because everybody and their mother loves RG3 and believes he is a potential All-Pro QB.  So I’ll keep this short and sweet, since I haven’t even hit “submit” yet and I can sense the brow-beating I’m going to take.

But some people believe you should trade away our entire draft for RG3; something no other team in the NFL has ever done for a QB.

I don’t think we should. And putting aside all those worries about the draft being a place from which we can build depth, and all the young talent we’d be forfeiting on, etc etc.

For the purposes of this post, I’m just going to focus on RG3. I think the kid could bust.

I have several concerns:

• The only player that actually projects to RG3’s style of play in the modern NFL is Michael Vick. And Vick’s career has been injury-laden and teams effectively schemed in 2011 to erase him from the equation anyway.
• Griffin has a fantastic arm. But if you watch any games he played over the past couple years, it’s not exactly a pro offense he’s running, to put it kindly. To be blunt, Griffin’s extreme, unprecedented athleticism absorbed and confused college defenses so profoundly that he was basically playing catch the past couple of years against broken-down defenses. Anybody watch the bowl game against Washington?
• I am a believer that the amount of NFL-style passes (i.e. accurate throws into tight windows) a QB completes in college is a predictor of their NFL success. Griffin was such a unique talent in the wide-open spread offense Baylor runs that he almost never had to do this.
• His style of play is radical. There’s no existing playbook for somebody who plays like he does, with his amazing versatility and electric game-breaking ability. There’s no precedent that this kind of quarterbacking reaps Super Bowl success.
• A lot of Griffin’s highlight reels come from broken plays, and he is an astonishing player for those kinds of circumstances. His Plan Cs and Ds are fascinating. But I don’t have a lot of faith in Griffin’s abilities to read blitzes or coverage schemes, because he’s never had to. (Granted, this is a complaint for the vast majority of QB prospects, but it’s a valid concern if we’re giving up an entire draft for the guy.)
• To what extent is RG3 a locker room leader?  Being immensely talented is awesome.  But commanding the huddle is another thing altogether.

So there it is.  I accept the punishment I’m about to receive. I know it’s coming. And I know I’m an idiot.

But somebody on the Chiefs blogosphere needs to register some dissent against the asinine idea of trading away an entire draft for a player we’d have to radically reconstruct our playbook to accommodate.