The safety lit into Robert Griffin III’s right knee, and the QB buckled to the ground. He’d lie there for two minutes.

For all intents and purposes, the team’s season was over.

And yet Griffin — then a sophomore at Baylor — still played out the rest of the half, throwing for 226 yards and three touchdowns on one leg. The same injury may have gotten him again this past year with the Redskins, but Griffin’s tenacity and spirit are back, too.

That much is clear.

“I’m ready to move on. You can only do so much in seven-on-seven,” an antsy Griffin told the Washington Post at training camp Monday. “The completion percentage is there. I feel like the rhythm is there with the guys. We’re finding the holes in the defense when we have to.

“We’re throwing the check-downs when we have to as well. So Coach will tell you something else, but I’m ready to move on.”

Mike Shanahan, of course, is being extra cautious, responding to reporters by saying that he likes Griffin’s fire but not his timetable. Fans will have to wait a few more weeks to see RG3 in full action, with the Heisman winner set to sit out the Redskins’ four preseason games.

If history is any indication, though, Griffin should be ready to go in September when Washington opens its season against Philadelphia.

Following his college ACL injury on Sept. 26, 2009, Griffin rehabbed the rest of the season and into the offseason. It’s not clear when was the earliest Griffin could have been ready to go, but he would start every game in 2010, throwing for 22 touchdowns and rushing for another eight.

He’s hoping to have the same kind of comeback after experiencing his first injury in the pros.

Griffin had been very vocal in the spring about being healthy enough for the start of training camp, although (unhappily) he has not yet been fully integrated into team exercises. Perhaps his recovery isn’t quite “superhuman,” as Dr. James Andrews called it in March, but — less than eight months removed from his injury — RG3 is still farther along than expected, saying Monday that his “leg’s not an issue.”

ACL tears typically necessitate a recovery of nine months or so, with Griffin’s torn MCL theoretically adding on even more time to that figure. What we have then is a near-mirror image of the injury to Vikings running back Adrian Peterson.

That does not mean that Griffin’s body and Peterson’s body heal at the same rate — something that Peterson himself told Griffin when the Redskin asked him for advice — but there is certainly some insight to be drawn from Peterson’s recovery.

Like Griffin, the 2012 MVP went down in the final weeks of the regular season, and Peterson likewise was ruled out of his team’s preseason. He’d be listed as ‘questionable’ for the season opener, but there were no questions at the end of the season as to who was the best player in the NFL.

Not too shabby. And, for Griffin, a blueprint.

“As soon as we finished our little cry festival, I put the date of the first week [of the 2013 season] in my phone,” Griffin said in May to USA Today. “That was my goal since then.”

All signs are pointing to his reaching it, too.

 

Images via NJ.com, ESPN