RG3 has torn LCL, will undergo surgery to check his ACL
Robert Griffin III tore his LCL late in the fourth quarter of the Redskins' wild-card loss to the Seahawks, according to CBSSports.com's Mike Freeman. Griffin and the team want to have the knee surgery performed as soon as possible to determine if there is damage to his ACL, reports CBS Sports' Jason La Canfora.
La Canfora writes that Griffin, his parents, his fiancé, Redskins owner Dan Snyder and Redskins trainer Larry Hess left Washington at 11 a.m. Tuesday and flew to Alabama so Griffin could be evaluated by Dr. James Andrews.
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"The expectation [is] Griffin and his family will remain near Andrews' offices until the procedure is complete,” La Canfora writes. “Team sources said the coaching staff has not been apprised of the severity of the damage and in fact it may not be fully determined until Andrews goes inside the knee."
Though Griffin has defended coach Mike Shanahan's decision to leave him in the game -- despite it seeming clear that Griffin shouldn't have been playing after aggravating his previous knee injury (a sprained LCL) in the first quarter, which turned him ineffective -- the Redskins coach has come under fire for putting his star player at risk.
Considering Andrews had major reservations about Griffin playing in the first place, Shanahan's decision raised the ire of many observers, especially when Griffin's knee buckled in the first quarter -- which forced him into a nasty limp for the rest of the game -- and then completely gave out late in the fourth quarter.
On Monday, though, Andrews backtracked a little from his original statement and on Tuesday evening, Shanahan, once again, defended himself and then claimed that Griffin's latest injury occurred one play BEFORE the bad snap in the fourth quarter that officially ended Griffin's season.
"I don't know anything about injuries,” Shanahan told the NFL Network's Andrea Kremer. “All I do is talk with the doctors. I think we have three of the best doctors in the entire country. If the doctors had a question, [Griffin] would've been pulled from the game.”
Considering Andrews' original quotes conflicted with Shanahan's comments when Griffin originally hurt his knee last month (Shanahan said Griffin was cleared by Andrews; Andrews said he never examined Griffin that day), it's fair to view Shanahan's quotes with a dose of skepticism.
Most of us, though, can agree with Shanahan when he told Kremer, "You'd have to be a complete idiot to think I would overrule our doctors. That's ludicrous. If someone were to do that, they should be fired."
For now, La Canfora writes, “Regardless, the expectation is that Kirk Cousins will be guiding the offense for the majority of the offseason, given that Griffin could have his LCL and ACL repaired this week when Andrews does perform the surgery. ... If he does require a full LCL and ACL repair, that can be a particularly troublesome combination with a long recovery process.
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