The only surprise in Robert Griffin III winning the AP Offensive Rookie of the Year Award was that he personally showed up to accept it.

I wondered if the Savior of Redskins football could walk to the stage after surgeries on both knees, on his left knee to remove body parts for use on his right knee. It was encouraging to see him there. Redskins RB Alfred Morris said last Thursday that Griffin was pushing the limits of his rehabilitation in typical RGIII fashion.

“It’s just about being smart. I was ahead when I did [knee rehabilitation] in 2009. I’m a little bit ahead right now as well, as you guys can see. I just got to make sure I be smart about it and think long-term rather than short term.”

Those quotes are from a washingtonpost.com story today. Griffin meant it to apply to his rehab, but I hope he is thinking about his play style, too. For a man who said he was not a Michael Vick running quarterback, Griffin ran with Vick-like abandon in 2012. He ended the season in typical Vick fashion – injured.

Only near certainty is that Redskins QB Robert Griffin III is expected to open training camp on the Physically Unable to Perform List.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 3, 2013

Adam Schefter reports that Griffin will open training camp on the PUP list. Griffin insists he will be ready to play by game one. The playoff game against Seattle triggered doubts about the Redskins' and Griffin's decision process on Griffin's health. How's this going to end? 

It's clear the Redskins, in typical NFL thinking, expect Griffin to be personally responsible for avoiding injury. Thinking long term rather than short term is the only way for Griffin to go. It would do a lot for Hog Heaven's peace of mind.

_________________________

Year-end awards are meant to honor regular season accomplishments. Fans, bloggers, and pseudo-analysts like Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin tend to be shallow thinkers cursed by recency (made-up word).  

Fellow members of the QB Golden Class of 2012 Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson made the playoffs. Wilson had a playoff run that propelled him to Pepsi MAX Rookie of the Year honors. Hog Heaven wondered if post-season appearances would turn the AP's ROY voting away from RGIII.

We needn't have worried. Griffin won in a landslide. The vote was presaged by honors Griffin won all season long. He was a seven-time winner of the NFL's Pepsi MAX Rookie of the Week Award. Alfred Morris won the award three times and back-up QB Kirk Cousins won once. Redskins rookies rocked the award 11 of 17 weeks.

The future is bright for the Washington Redskins. We need Mike Shanahan, Bruce Allen, Morocco Brown and Scott Campbell to work that magic again to keep things going. The team has another year in the penalty box after the league's theft of $36 million salary cap. Washington gave up its first round 2013 Draft pick in the trade for RGIII.

The Redskins front office is stronger and smarter than it has ever been in the Snyder era and it is wondrous in our eyes. I can't wait to see what they come up with. The game between the seasons is as compelling as the game itself.   

Link: Robert Griffin III's stats on pro-football-reference.com.

The folks at Super Bowl 47 Betting think the game is a battle of quarterbacks. They love that Joe Flacco "has been building a very respectable career for a half-decade," the tortoise to Colin Kaepernick's hare.

Tell you what; I think Tony Romo is a better quarterback than Flacco. Don't twist that into a Hog Heaven knock on Flacco. Romo plays for a deeply flawed team. I've been more impressed by the front office of Flacco's team than by Romo's team for quite a long time. And yes, the Ravens would have had more Super Bowl appearances with Romo. I offer no guarantee of a Super Bowl win with Romo.

Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome spent his entire career with the franchise, first as a Hall of Fame player for the then Cleveland Browns, then joining  front office in 1991. After grooming him for the job, owner Art Modell named Newsome general manager in 2002. Newsome has been a Draft Day genius for the Browns-Ravens for a long time. He was equally adept at hiring a head coach. 

There's a lesson in that for our own Daniel Snyder. Hog Heaven studied Newsome's career for clues when Snyder might grow into a legit football executive. Growth to general manager is a 12 to 15-year process. Snyder bought the Redskins in 1999 and began active management in 2000. By that measure, Snyder is just about due to become a good football executive.

For all the talk about quarterback, the Redskins cannot become a Super Bowl contender until Snyder becomes a Super Bowl caliber executive. Dan Steinberg reported in DC Sports Bog Wednesday that Snyder fired Vinny Cerrato for failure to protect him from Jim Zorn. Sorry, Mr. Snyder. That won't cut it. An owner's prime focus is his front office executive team, not so much the head coach or quarterback.

Cerrato needed help from Snyder as much as Snyder did from Vinny. Teamwork between owner and the chief football executive are how contenders are built. It's the reason the Ravens, Patriots, Packers, Giants and until recently the Eagles, are perennial contenders. It's more than a matter of quarterbacks.

Sadly, Snyderrato fed each man's flaws. Snyder was as much to blame for Zorn as Cerrato was.

Snyder's recent hands-off active management is a good start in the sense that do-no-harm is a good start. But, that's not a good finish. Genuine teamwork between Snyder and executive vp Mike Shanahan will sustain winning.   

I love the Redskins and want to see another Super Bowl in my lifetime. Washington has its quarterback (ask me again in September). Now, I'm pulling for Snyder to get it right as an astute owner. I think he is on his way, at last. He just needs one or two more years of seasoning.

Super Bowl or Bust in 2015.

This information provided by InsuranceQuotes.com.

From: Bankrate Insurance’s InsuranceQuotes.com

Redskins Hog Heaven congratulates Robert Griffin III who has been named NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and overall Rookie of the Year by the Pro Football Writers of America.

Griffin gained 4,015 yards of total offense, scored 27 touchdowns by passing or rushing, and set NFL rookie records for 102.4 passer rating, 1.3 percent interception rate, and rushing yards by a quarterback.

Off the field, Griffin won over the football world by being as genuine as he seems to be.

While having breakfast at an IHOP yesterday, Hog Heaven overheard a conversation by a large group of (more) elderly gentlemen who were discussing Sammy Baugh. Sixty years from now, someone who is 12 years old today will tout Griffin. These are the good old days for somebody.

In 50 years of watching pro football, Hog Heaven has never seen anyone like RGIII.

Griffin and RB Alfred Morris have been named to the Pro Football Weekly/Pro Football Writers Association 2012 All-Rookie team 

The BIG prize is to be selected Rookie of the Year by the league itself. Both Griffin and Morris are finalists. Fan voting for the 2012 NFL Pepsie Max Rookie of the Year continues to January 29, 2013. Go here to vote early and vote often.

The NFL will name it's Rookie of the Year during Super Bowl week.

HAIL.

Image: November 17, 2012, Rob Carr/Getty Images North America via zimbio.com.

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The Hogettes, those crossdressing men with pig noses, announced they are hanging up their snouts forever. With them passes another sign of the end of the Era of Gibbs, the good one marked by three Lombardi Trophies.

My friend Tom Shearman (Never met him. Exchanged email) published a seven-minute video profile of the Hogettes we think is worthy for Redskins Hog Heaven.

Like the name of this site, the Hogettes chose that handle to honor the offensive line that powered three teams to the Super Bowl. That made them one of the few, certainly among the first, to pick an identity not tied to the aboriginal people once called American Indians, now Native Americans, I guess. Some people have become so sensitive about the the team name.   

So here's to The Hogettes. May their legacy live as long as the memory of those fabulous Hogs, the O-line of champions.

Image: 2011, Redskins Hogettes, photo by Anthony Brown

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The Official Mom of Redskins Hog Heaven heard an update last week on Robert Griffin III's knee and she was certain the young star would be inundated by calls from tort lawyers.

Why, asked I?

"Because of the way he was mistreated by that man." The Official Mom couldn't recall the name of Washington Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan.

There you go. The official Mom was thinking like a typical mom whose sympathies are entirely with the kid.

Football is a world of men. Trying to explain that world to women is never entirely successful. Throw a bunch of men together absent women, say on a weekend fishing trip, or any kind of stag party, and we revert to our teen years complete with earthy language, crude jokes, and a healthy dose of He-Man hyper masculinity (I have the power).

The Official Mom was sure RGIII had to be misinformed when I explained that Griffin III wanted to stay in the Seahawks game. He was just being one of the guys in a locker room where all of the guys are playing hurt. She couldn't see it.

Both the league office and the players' union looked into the Redskins' handling of Griffin's injury and neither finds fault in it. The lawyers won't get far with the supposed victim or with the Courts.

Everyone from Mike Shanahan to fans to Griffin himself can learn from the experience.

Learning from the past

Pain should tell you something.

Jay Cutler took himself out of a playoff game when he believed his injury-hampered performance hurt the Bears' chance to win. Clinton Portis hit the dirt in a 2010 game when facing imminent hits by defenders.

Griffin might never have heard of those instances, but the negative fallout reinforced the culture of playing through pain. In fact, Griffin pulled a guilt card on Shanahan by saying he (Griffin) earned the right to play with pain.

And he certainly did earn that right, but Griffin was wrong about being the team's best and only quarterback option to win. At one point during the third quarter, Griffin's passer rating was in the low 70s. Russell Wilson's rating was 104.

QB Passer Rating differential in one of three stats Hog Heaven finds worth watching. Cold, Hard Football Facts considers QBR differential a quality stat because it has the highest correlation to winning. The differential is as much a measure of a defense's ability to suppress quarterback passing as it is a measure of the quarterback himself.

In the third quarter, Washington's defense was doing a poor job containing Wilson as was shown by his high QBR. Gimpy Griffin was not playing well enough to overcome that. Seattle was doing a better job against an easier, more hampered, target.

Coaches must coach

And that's my only knock against the Coaches Shanahan in this affair. In the second half of the Seahawks game, Head Coach Shanahan failed to put a healthier quarterback on the field while OC Shanahan did not adjust play calling to a lot more handoffs to Alfred Morris. You know, a game plan that either Griffin or Kirk Cousins could run while still expecting to win. However, you read it, this was a failure to coach. Hog Heaven thinks that it cost us the game.

Landry warned us

LaRon Landry said some highly uncomplimentary things about the Redskins' training and medical staff when Washington declined to sign him to a new contract.

Landry missed parts of two seasons with a slow-healing Achilles injury. He opted for an unconventional stem cell treatment instead of surgery suggested by the team. The Redskins medical staff misdiagnosed an injury to a bruised wrist when Landry actually suffered a dislocation with torn ligaments.

Washington had a tough time replacing Landry who played a full season with the Jets. It's time to take his comments more seriously. The Redskins have competent trainers an medical people, headlined by Dr. James Andrews, the go-to orthopedic surgeon of all sports. Something is clearly amiss with the way the coaches, trainers and doctors are working together. 

In management, we call that process improvement. You follow sports to get away from boring work issues. Ignoring this problem could be damaging your favorite athletes.

Rookie growing pains aren't always in the knee

Griffin does not escape blame either. For a player who took pains to say that his play style is not like Michael Vick's, Griffin runs in the manner of Vick with similar results.

Despite the gibberish he told the coach, he was hurt because he had an injured ligament. If the coach is going to leave the medical decisions to the player, the player owes the coach a better decision, or more accurate description of his physical symptoms.

The Redskins had the best orthopedic surgeon in the locker room at half time of the Seahawks game and nobody asked the right question. They asked the question that got the answer they wanted to hear. There is a difference.

Grow up, young man.

Every one of these issues is fixable. Do that and all the Official Moms will be happy.

Image: Jacqueline Griffin with son, Robert III, from here.

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Redskins Hog Heaven congratulates Alfred Morris and London Fletcher for their selection to the Associated Press NFL All-Pro Second Team for the 2012 season.

Adrian Peterson (Vikings) was the unanimous choice for first team running back. Marshawn Lynch (Seahawks) joins Peterson on the first team. Jamaal Charles joins Morris as second team running back.

Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman, both of the 49ers, were named first team Inside Linebackers. Daryl Washington (Cardinals) joins Fletcher on the second team at ILB.

None of those fabulous rookie quarterbacks from the Golden Class of 2012 made the cut as Associated Press All Pro. The NFL voted QB Robert Griffin III, LT Trent Williams and specials team Lorenzo Alexander to the 2013 Pro Bowl.

Griffin won't be playing football anytime soon. He sure earned a trip to Hawaii for his 2012 performance.

More: see John Bibb's story on Bleacher Report and the All Pro roster on NBCSports.com.

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