| Griffin's final run was pretty special. (AP) |
The comparisons are inevitable. Andrew Luck, the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2012, and No. 2 pick Robert Griffin III will be scrutinized throughout the season, and probably throughout their careers, unless one of them does his best Ryan Leaf impersonation. And RG3 always will be looked at through a prism of Luck. That's why we're compiling all the most important stats for every game they play this year, and some of the most unimportant aspects of those contests as well. This way it'll be easier to tell who is his team's savior and who should be forced to join JaMarcus Russell in the corner away from the rest of civilization.
Week 6: Luck's Colts played one of their worst games of the season in a disappointing 35-9 loss to the Jets. Griffin’s Redskins watched as the Vikings made a comeback attempt before the quarterback took the game over by himself and stunned Minnesota, 38-26.
Passing stats
Luck: 22-44, 280 yards, zero touchdowns, two interceptions
Griffin: 17-22, 182 yards, one touchdown, one interception
Rushing stats
Luck: One carry, minus-1 yard, zero touchdowns
Griffin: 13 carries, 138 yards, two touchdowns
Longest play from scrimmage
Luck: With 12 seconds left in the game, Luck completed a 29-yard pass to Reggie Wayne. Yeah, it was garbage time.
Griffin: You might have seen this 76-yard run that put the game away for the Redskins. It was pretty neat.
Best play
Luck: With 7:50 to play, Luck hit Wayne on a nice third-and-10 pass in which he threw a dart to Wayne, who was covered well by Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie, to keep the Colts' hopes alive. More than a minute later, Luck tossed a pick in the end zone. Hey, it was a stretch to find any “best play” for Luck.
Griffin: Clearly, it was the 76-yard touchdown run. It was majestic and perhaps the best thing Griffin has done all season.
Worst play
Luck: On the Colts' opening drive, they managed a first down on a third-and-15, but on third-and-one, Luck threw a terrible touch pass that went about three yards over Dwayne Allen’s head. It wasn’t that egregious of a play, but it set the tone for Luck’s struggles for the rest of the day.
Griffin: Griffin had just been nearly picked off by Harrison Smith, and on the next play, with less than six minutes to go in the first quarter, Griffin rolled right and threw to Josh Morgan. But he was undercut by Antoine Winfield for an interception giving Minnesota great field position.
Playing dangerously
Luck: Any throw anywhere near Cromartie. The first time he was pick-sixed by Cromartie, Luck had thrown a ball too far in front of Wayne. The touchdown was overruled because of an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty assessed on Aaron Maybin. The second time Cromartie returned an interception for a touchdown was erased because Cromartie had interfered with the pass. Still, Luck should have avoided Cromartie from then on.
Griffin: He vowed to be more careful with his running, and early in the third quarter, that’s what he was, pump-faking a pass before running 15 yards for the first down and getting out of bounds before anybody could touch him. The next play, he got horse-collared by Harrison Smith on a scramble, and the play after that, he dove headfirst into the end zone to score on an seven-yard run. Dangerous, but successful.
Best pregame line
Luck: The enormous banners of [Peyton] Manning that had loomed from the side of Lucas Oil Stadium were removed long ago, in the days just before the Colts selected Luck in April. But inside the building, the win over the Packers was the moment that Luck’s unobtrusive arrival was complete. Luck has purposefully chosen to be low-key in his entrance to the N.F.L., and if a first overall draft pick can fly under the radar, he has managed to do it. He has filmed a commercial for a soccer video game, but that is about it for high-profile endorsements. That is in part because Luck’s aw-shucks personality does not mesh well with the limelight. But it is also because Luck’s father, Oliver, a former N.F.L. quarterback who is now West Virginia’s athletic director, has encouraged his son to keep his life simple for the first couple of years as a professional, the better to focus his attention on the field. Luck is able to go to dinner with teammates near his downtown Indianapolis home and dine relatively undisturbed. -- Judy Battista, NY Times
Griffin: Terry Shea doesn't know where to start. The nine weeks he spent mentoring and training Robert Griffin III earlier this year proved so rewarding that it's hard to focus on one defining moment or alluring characteristic. So Shea begins a tour of his RG3 experience. He'll remind you of the slogan Griffin uttered repeatedly during their time together at the Athletes' Performance Institute in Arizona: "Big we, little me." "That's the way he plays football," Shea said. -- Dan Weiderer, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Best postgame line
Luck: Andrew Luck’s mother probably told him there’d be days like this in the N.F.L. Or maybe he had read some of the more recent commentary written and spoken about Mark Sanchez. Being a starter and presumed savior at quarterback is not exactly like playing third base for the Yankees. Unless he was determined to masterfully delude himself, Alex Rodriguez had only his bat and age-worn body to blame for his recent embarrassments. But when a team surrounds a young quarterback with dubious talent at too many positions, it’s complicated. It is quite possible -- and typically plausible -- to stink with an asterisk. -- Harvey Araton, NY Times
Griffin: All afternoon, for a number of different reasons, not all of them related strictly to sensible quarterback play, Robert Griffin III had been the very model of a modern game manager. He took only what the defense would give him. He slid to avoid unnecessary contact, and he went out of bounds when he had to. But here he was, behind Morgan's block, tearing 76 yards up the left sideline and listening to his teammates tell him to go out of bounds until they saw that he was leaving the Minnesota secondary far behind. "That's when 'Go out of bounds' became 'Go, go, go,'" he said after the game. -- Charles P. Pierce, Grantland.com
Team savior scale (1-5)
Luck: It might not have been the worst game of his pro career, but it was close. Luck isn’t solely to blame for this loss (I’d put much of it on the Colts run defense), but he didn’t do much to help either. He gets a 2 (last week was a 5; overall this season, he's a 72 percent team savior).
Griffin: Take a look at that above GIF and tell me Griffin doesn’t deserve a 5 (last week was a 1; overall this season, he's a 67 percent team savior).
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