Griffin’s MRI shows no major injury, but he has a sprained knee

The Redskins have to be relieved that the MRI on Robert Griffin III showed no major damage in his right knee.

That's the good news, which was announced by the team on Sunday evening. That doesn't mean Griffin is healthy though. The team announced that the knee is sprained, which is no minor deal when it comes to his status for next week's game.

The Redskins might be smart to play it safe with their star rookie, though Washington is very much in the playoff race with a 7-6 record and it will be hard to sit him in a game at Cleveland if he can move well enough to play. There hasn't yet been any definitive word if the sprain will cause him to miss any time.

The injury came when he was hit by enormous Ravens defensive lineman Haloti Ngata at the end of a run. His knee hyper-extended in a painful-looking way. Griffin tried to gut it out on Washington's final drive of regulation but realized he couldn't go any further.

"I knew I needed to get out at that point. I couldn't move," Griffin said, according to Redskins.com. "At some point, you have to do what's right for the team. If I would have played for the rest of the game, I probably would have hurt myself even more."

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Griffin has already said he hopes to play next week, but if he can't, rookie Kirk Cousins got a bit of confidence from throwing a touchdown and running for a two-point conversion in the final seconds to tie the game that Washington eventually won in overtime. And signs were positive that Griffin could make a quick recovery.

"It's sore right now," coach Mike Shanahan said according to Redskins.com. "He wanted to go back in the game, which is a good sign."

At this point, in the big picture, the Redskins should be happy that Griffin has a chance to play at all in the near future. It could have been much worse.

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