Robert Griffin III: Rookie Redskins QB Will Meet Lofty Expectations in 1st Year

When it comes to rookie quarterbacks, we all love to overstate.

We love to say some of them are going to be the best thing we've seen since the biggest star in the NFL was drafted; we love to say others are going to be colossal failures who will destroy their franchises' futures.

The truth is, we never know. Often, the best quarterbacks come out of absolutely nowhere (hello, Tom Brady) and the worst ones were once projected to be great (remember how outraged the pundits were when Matt Leinart dropped so far on draft day in 2006?).

But all of that being said, there are plenty of reasons to be excited about Robert Griffin III.

Lately, the Redskins' rookie QB has been lavished with a few superlatives of his own. Most recently, his teammate—and one of his soon-to-be top targets—Josh Morgan told On Tap, via The Washington Post:

"

He’s as fast as Michael Vick but he can make all the throws that Peyton Manning can make and he can make all the reads Tom Brady can make.

"

Those are the kinds of overstatements we like to avoid when we haven't yet seen a future star take a single regular-season snap. It's also doubtful that 22-year-old Robert Griffin can already "make all the reads Tom Brady can make" after Brady has played in the NFL for 12 years.

But it's good to see this kind of confidence coming from one of RG3's receivers. It's good to see he's making an impact and is instilling some kind of confidence in a team that finished each of the last three seasons under .500.

His teammates' confidence in him, however, isn't the only reason to believe that RG3 is legitimately going to be able to live up to the lofty expectations he's been saddled with (even if he never ends up being a hybrid of three of the greatest quarterbacks in the NFL). He's lived up to those expectations in the preseason—which can never really be counted upon as an indicator of future success, but the signs he gave us were good.

Against Andrew Luck's Colts in the third game of the exhibition slate, Griffin connected on 11-of-17 passes for 74 yards and a touchdown. A week before that, against Chicago, he threw for 49 yards and rushed for 17. He tossed the Redskins' only touchdown in Week 1, and he hasn't yet thrown an interception.

The other key to RG3's future with the Redskins is the fact that restoring this team isn't solely on his shoulders—unlike the way the Colts' success depends almost entirely on Luck. Griffin, rather, is the Redskins' missing piece. He's their leader for years to come, but there was already a nucleus to work with when he arrived.

That doesn't guarantee a playoff berth, but it certainly makes his job a bit easier—and increases his odds of getting this team to where it needs to be.

You can't predict the future, and there's no way for us to know who's going to be named the rookie of the year a few months from now. But there's every reason in the world to believe that RG3 is going to be the answer the Redskins are looking for.