Ask any major league starting pitcher with a high pitch count how he feels in the late innings of a game, and 99 percent of the time he’ll tell you that he feels great. In fact, he probably doesn’t feel great. He’s probably trashed. The pitcher responds the way he thinks he’s supposed to. After all, he’s a warrior!
This was essentially what Mike Shanahan (football coach of the Washington Redskins) did with quarterback RG3 (rookie phenom Robert Griffin III) on Jan 6th in a playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks. RG3 was clearly hobbled—barely able to defend himself. He was gimping around on the same leg (knee really) that he had severely injured earlier in the year.
‘You OK?'” Shanahan asked. “And he [RG3] said, `I’m fine.'” This exchange was late in the game. At that point, even a grade school kid could tell RG3 wasn’t right. RG3’s response was no surprise—he was responding the way he was expected to. After all, even as a rookie, he was the face of the franchise and its unquestioned leader.
RG3 stayed in the game. Minutes later he mangled his knee trying to recover a botched snap from center. RG3 was not only out of the game but possibly next season as well due to, among other things, a torn ACL.
Shanahan tempted fate. He lost.
Shanahan’s assertions that he left RG3 in the game because RG3 said he was fine are ridiculous. Shanahan has been coaching for—what—a gazillion years? He knew better. He knew that RG3 would say just about anything that would keep him in the game. In other words, RG3 responds the way he thinks he’s supposed to.
Even if the question came to mind, it should have never left Shanahan’s lips. In the end, however, RG3’s answer to Shanahan’s question proved to be the justification Shanahan used to keep RG3 in the game.
Let’s call this what it is, a lapse in judgment—a very costly one. RG3 shouldn’t have been on the field—even if he’s our best player in the year’s most important game.
The lesson: We’ll learn far more about ourselves as a result of asking this type of self-validating question than anything the person ever tells us in return.