Robert Griffin III at the NFL Combine: A Hero in the Making

There's a broad distinction, at least in my mind, between great athletes and heroic athletes. They are not at all the same thing.

Some athletes cannot always be proficient, but they can be loved and cherished, like an old Chevy that doesn't always start on the first turn or a quarterback that goes 2-for-8 passing against a division rival.

The opposite is also true. In fact, we're quite accustomed to throwing stones up the proverbial mountain, whether our target resides on a Hollywood red carpet, on Wall Street or in the Miami Heat's backcourt. Achievement alone doesn't wow the populace anymore, and security outside that standard deviation from the mean can no longer be taken for granted.

That is, we're really picky about how we choose our heroes.

That proverbial jury is still out on Robert Griffin the third. I feel compelled to spell that out, since the former Baylor quarterback is neither a Super Bowl nor an English monarch. In fact, I find the generally-accepted shorthand for his name, "RGIII" to be quite tacky, especially when "RG3" lends itself to so much awesomeness. I read headlines about the 2011 Heisman winner and I hear "arr-gee-aye-aye-aye" in my head. I find this bothersome.

I can't remember a quarterback before Mr. Griffin that sported dreadlocks. But I don't want to talk about the dreads, although I realize that saying so is immediately self-defeating. A quarterback's hairstyle should generally be a non-starter (unless we're talking about this, or this). You might think it's great, or it could signify the start of the apocalypse, and that's your business. But until the dude straps on a helmet and runs out of an NFL tunnel, we have a finite list of things for excitement to be generated.

One of those things is Griffin's 40-yard dash, which he ran yesterday at the NFL combine. His 4.41 time was faster than any other quarterback in Indianapolis, and most of the running backs. And while football, as we're reminded this time of year, is not played in a straight line, no one will waste time deconstructing the fact that Griffin is really damn fast.

Does that 40 time help a guy that was already projected to go second overall? Yes and no. The Indianapolis Colts, who will pick first off the pile in April, may open negotiations a first-overall contract with Griffin to get a better deal on Andrew Luck, projected first overall (although with the recent rookie salary restructuring from the NFL's new CBA, the benefits of this are almost negligible). But the price of that second-overall pick, currently held by the St. Louis Rams, has certainly gone up, and one can surmise that any football career based outside of the Edward Jones dome would be more pleasant than one inside it. To paraphrase Professor Snape, "Ten points for Griffin." 

Last year's first overall pick, Cam Newton, found himself in a similar position last year. He pitched himself to NFL teams as "an entertainer and an icon," Without saying a word, RG3 has done exactly the same thing. Before Sunday, it was almost a forgone conclusion that Griffin's upside would take a backseat to Luck's pro-ready pedigree. That view was shaken, if not significantly altered, in 4.41 seconds.

Luck was bred to be a successful pro quarterback, first by his father-agent and later by the whitest of the white-bread Pac-12 schools. This isn't to say that Luck's success has been boring, but to argue that it has been uninspiring. And we're not arguing that Griffin hadn't had advantages or help in his rise to college football stardom, but it wasn't part of his narrative. His allure was less refined, and arguably less prepared. While Luck's draft status and Stanford's return to college football prominence were shovel-ready storylines, nobody wanted to talk about Baylor's program before they stunned TCU in their 2011 opener.

And a hero was born.  

Newton went first overall last year, and it was clear that Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson was purchasing a star as much as a quarterback. A curious "no tattoos, no piercings" edict was issued to the rookie, but the issue lost steam when (a) no explicit objection came from Newton, and (b) when the kid threw for over 400 yards Week 1. Arguably no other pro debut in NFL history was laden with such entertaining and, um, icon-ing play.

Last year's reactions to Richardson's comments will almost certainly keep Griffin's future employers from issuing a "no dreads" rule. Would that team also push the NFL to allow their quarterback to keep the cumbersome "GRIFFIN III" nameplate on the back of his jersey? That remains to be seen. But Griffin's aesthetic--including that single sleeve he occasionally wears on his left arm--is part of his charm, and the NFL would be wise to accommodate that, rookie or otherwise.

If a quarterback from Baylor winning the Heisman trophy (No, seriously. BAYLOR!) wasn't enough to win your heart and mind, perhaps Sunday's sprint was. Even as much as we like fast things, our ability to tire of them in this day and age is equally quick. But I think Mr. Griffin will be around for a while, and might even crack my top ten list of All-Time Favorite Griffins, including Peter, Lois, Andy, Merv and the original eagle-lion hybrid. I could see Robert the third climbing to as high as second on that list.

And maybe even going to No. 1.