RG3 talks Call of Duty, pistol offense and young QB expectations

The former Heisman trophy winner at Baylor sat down with SB Nation over Zoom to talk Call of Duty and more.

Robert Griffin III is a man of many interests. From making anime comparisons on social media to his effervescent personality doing commentary, Griffin III tries to tie in his interests off the field with the work he does calling the action on the field. Those interests take him to Call of Duty: NEXT, a live streaming event on YouTube and Twitch that’ll provide fans with intel on the newest Call of Duty game, Black Ops 6. Griffin III will be on commentary during the stream, providing insight on the game only he can. Griffin III talked with me over Zoom to discuss Call of Duty, anime and more.

J.P. Acosta (JA): So, the first question I want to ask is what you’re doing with Call of Duty: Next?

Robert Griffin III (RG3): No, listen, I’m very excited about Call of Duty Next and really just being a part of that partnership. I like to consider myself one of the biggest fans in the world of Call of Duty, and I want everyone out there to know that you don’t have to be great at the game to actually love the game. So I’ll be doing some commentating there for the event and obviously I’m, you know, very excited. I had an opportunity to do some stuff with Call of Duty Mobile. Now I’m getting an opportunity to do something with Black Ops Six that’s dropping October 25th. So, you know, I’m very excited about that.

JA: What are some of the biggest differences between doing commentary on Call of Duty streams and live football?

RG3: Well it’s kind of the difference between ... well I’m a military brat, so it’s the difference between actually going to war and playing the game for a living. No one is getting killed on the football field, even though they might get hit pretty hard, but in Call of Duty obviously getting kill streaks and doing things of that nature is a big part of it, so that’s one aspect. The other part is the incredible amount of things that you can do. You talk about the loadouts to each game, all of those are all sensitive, it depends on whether you’re being an attacker or if you’re going to be in support or if you’re a sniper. You don’t really have all those loadouts in football. There’s different scenarios, right? First down, second down, third down, late in the game, early in the game. But everyone has the same shoulder pads, or a couple of variations, as well as the same helmets and same cleats. So I think that’s the biggest differentiator, and it can be more fun to break down those scenarios.

JA: So, while you were playing, were there a lot of times where you would hop on Call of Duty with other players? Was it kind of a chance to chill out, kind of bond with the team over something that wasn’t football?

RG3: I mean, you said it yourself. It gives you an opportunity to bond with different people and that’s what we love so much about sports, right? Is the ability to get people from different walks of life to connect, for a common goal. So with Call of Duty, we actually used to use it when I was in college to kinda calm us down before the games. The night before, right after we had team meeting or we had our meetings with our position, coaches, we pop in Call of Duty play, you know, amongst ourselves just to get our minds away from the game, we put so much work into that you wanna kind of relax a little bit before you get to the game and Call of Duty was that escape for us.

JA: So outside of outside of you, of course, who was the best teammate that you have played Call of Duty with?

RG3: I would, I would honestly say probably not a teammate but, but a guy that I’m a colleague with or was a colleague with [New York Jets cornerback] Sauce Gardner a few years back, I had a chance to, to play Call of Duty with Sauce and it’s not that he’s just good. Like, he’ll, he’ll sit there and be like, ‘oh, I’m not that good.’ He kinda trying to play coy a little bit. He’s actually a pretty good gamer. He’s probably one of the best ones a guy I played with back in college, it was probably Terrence Williams who was a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys a few years back, he was one of my wideouts at Baylor. He’s pretty damn good at Call of Duty.

JA: So I want to transition to the football field real quick. We’ve seen five rookie QBs and a lot of them are coming into a new franchise with expectations to lead the team to big things. As a rookie, how do you manage those expectations while understanding that the pressure is still there?

RG3: Yeah, I mean, that’s a great question. I think so far, we’ve seen two of the young guys get named the starter Bo Nix in Denver and, Jayden Daniels with the Washington Commanders and the way that they’ve approached it. I mentor both guys and have a great relationship with them, they approach it the right way. You go in, you put in the work and you prove to these guys who aren’t 18, 21, 22 year old kids. Some of these guys are 29, 30, 34 years old with five kids, you know? They got a mortgage to pay, all these things are different opposed to a 19 year old who. just got paid a million bucks in NIL and buying brand new Jordans. There’s different responsibilities there, so it’s not just hey, let’s go hang out, go to the club, play Call of Duty, right? You want to play Call of Duty with these guys and some of them do even though they got kids, it’s more about connecting with them, showing them that you’ll put in the work, right? So I think Bo Nix and Jayden Daniels did that the right way. They didn’t talk a big game, they just let their work do the talking for them and they won over their teammates that way, consistency with how they prepare, how they come to practice and that’s how you lead when you’re a young guy.

JA: So when you were initially a rookie in Washington was there when it came to being a leader and stepping up, was there a little bit of reservation, like you said, because, you know, you’re, you’re still the new guy even though you were the franchise quarterback?

RG3: Yeah, I don’t think there was reservation at all. You know, the beauty, the blessing and the curse of playing the quarterback position is that only one guy plays, right? So every guy in that room at some point in their life was that guy. So when you come into that room, you have to present yourself that way. But when I walked into the locker room in Washington, I had [linebacker] London Fletcher as a locker mate. This guy is the NFL Iron Man. What am I gonna be able to tell him that he hasn’t already heard or tell him and motivate him in a way with just my words, for a guy who was in the twilight of his career and was looking to get a few more cracks at winning a Super Bowl? There was nothing that I could say. I couldn’t say anything to Santana Moss, you know, well accomplished wide receiver, played with many quarterbacks. What am I gonna only tell him that’s gonna motivate him to go out and play harder or be the best or make him think that I’m the leader? So I had to take those two cases and just apply the work cause the only thing I can do for the NFL Iron Man is show him that he can trust me, show him that he should be willing to follow me as his quarterback, same thing with Santana Moss. That’s why I said for those guys, I don’t think they had any reservation with Bo Nix or Jayden Daniels or Drake Maye or any of these young guys, Caleb Williams, that’s probably the other one I missed, he’s definitely been named a starter, but they went in and they showed it with their work ethic with how they throw the ball, with how they come into the building every single day, and that’s the best way to do it for long term success.

JA: So I wanted to ask you another question about, when you were a quarterback in Washington, the offense kind of implemented some of the aspects from the Pistol and it worked to a huge effect and now we’re starting to see the pistol kind of come back. As a quarterback, what were your favorite aspects of running the Pistol offense and kind of seeing it grow as it’s come back to the NFL this year?

RG3: Yeah, I mean, you’re talking about guys like myself, [former 49ers’ QB] Colin Kaepernick, Russell [Wilson] didn’t do as much of that in college, but like the pistol wasn’t anything new, it was just being used at an extreme rate and I had so much experiences with that with that in college, it just came over to the NFL. It gives the running back an advantage in a sense because the linebackers don’t know, based off his pre alignment and the gun, what potential side he’s going to run to. When you have a running back, like we did in 2012 and Alfred Morris there in Washington who was a downhill, one cut guy, every advantage he could get, it was gonna allow him to manipulate those linebackers and make them have to go over multiple gaps before he was gonna make his cut. So I think it really lends itself to the zone concept, right? And that’s what that was like a Shanahan staple, a Kubiak staple. That’s what it lends itself to because those types of backs have to be a little bit more patient when they run the ball. So now we’re making the linebackers and the D line have to be more patient by putting the running back behind you. It’s cool to see, I call it a repeat league, like back in 2020 it was kind of like, I don’t know how this is gonna work in the NFL and now everyone’s doing it here in 2024, 12 years later, to the point where you rarely see any offenses in the NFL that do not run some aspect of the pistol. So it’s cool to be a part of that, you know, changing of the game, but I knew it was going to come. We were just the first ones to really make it like a cornerstone of our offense. Now, it’s a cornerstone of the league so recently.

JA: So towards the end of your career, you’re in Baltimore and Baltimore drafts Lamar Jackson. I wanted to ask you what it was like kind of behind the scenes watching Lamar grow into the player that he is today. Was there ever a moment where you’re like, holy crap? This guy is gonna be legitimately a superstar?

RG3: I’m gonna pull this analogy for you, right? The thing that people love about Call of Duty: Black Ops, especially Six that’s coming out is the fact that you kind of feel like you’re like a secret agent, you know what I mean? Like there’s some stealth to the game. When I got to Baltimore, they hadn’t drafted Lamar yet, but once they drafted him, I was like, ok, well now my immediate future here completely shifts and just like in Call of Duty, sometimes you’re gonna be the attacker, right? Sometimes you’re gonna be the support, you gotta be able to be nimble and move in a way that’s gonna help your team win.

So once they drafted Lamar, my first instinct was man, I get to be for Lamar, what I never had when I was in the NFL, which is a quarterback in the room who played like I did, who had the same experiences that I had and, and would know how to help me see the game the right way and not make the mistakes that I made in my playing career. So that’s where my mind shifted with Lamar. It wasn’t right away that you were like, oh, this guy’s gonna be incredible. I believed in him, but it was game like: let’s be honest here, like I’ve done some amazing things in my life. So not a lot of stuff would like shock me from what I’ve seen, but Lamar Jackson hit that spin move against the Cincinnati Bengals in 2019 and I’m on the sideline and I was like, ‘I ain’t never seen no, ish like that before,’ to spin between like two or three defenders, not lose speed and run it in for a touchdown. My jaw was on the ground and I came home, told my family I was like, ‘listen, I’ve done a lot of crazy runs. I ain’t never seen nothing like that’. It was his ability to, go to the game and play better. Like if you ask anyone there and they give you an honest assessment of like, how did practice go, how did training camp go? It was like, it was a work in progress but his ability to go to the game and make throws that I’ve never seen him make before, and make plays or make reads that he maybe like struggled a little bit with just showed me his process and all of our processes are different. Some people get it right away, some people it takes him a few days, some years. But when he got it, he had it and he wasn’t letting that go. His, first MVP season was something I’ll never forget.

JA: So my last question for you. You’re in, you’re in the Call of Duty Battle Royal. Where, what’s the strategy? What are you doing when you’re dropping in?

RG3: My first thought process is, you’re talking about Battle Royal or in like a team base?

JA: Battle Royal.

RG3: So for me, I am trying to get to high ground. Then if I’m not at high ground at first, I’m making sure I have a midrange weapon that way if I’m running through and I actually run into somebody, I know that I have a weapon that’s gonna help me, and not panic. That’s the number one thing that they say in Call of Duty, don’t panic, don’t just spray shoot, you know, but I’m trying to get to a place where I feel secure that I know that there’s only one way in and one way out. Then by doing that, as you probably know, from playing Call of Duty, you can put yourself in situations where they can kinda just smoke you out or throw a grenade. But for me, it’s easier for me to handle it that way because I maybe, I don’t know the map like the back of my hand like some of these pro players do. So it at least gives me an advantage if I know where my enemy is coming from. And I know where, where I have to focus my efforts instead of being in like a central location where I’ve got 17 ways to get shot or get hit or get stabbed. So that, that’s my initial strategy, it’s either getting to high ground as quick as possible, making sure I have that midrange, midrange weapon or getting to a spot where I know, like I know where they’re coming from. It works sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t. But you know, at the end of the day, the more you play, the better you get. So that’s the thing I have enjoyed about playing the game, over the years and I’ll continue to work those strategies. Maybe one day I’ll be able to get out there and just free willy nilly go do some all knife runs, and have a blast.