Source: USA TODAY

ASHBURN, Va. – Robert Griffin III threw the football off quick three-step drops in a group of rehabbing Washington Redskins players at the start of Thursday practice, showing decent, half-speed mobility.

More significantly, the second-year quarterback looks much better than anyone might imagine only 4 1/2 months after surgery to reconstruct torn ligaments in his right knee.

Griffin wore a heavier black-brace sheathing than the one he wore late last season after he suffered a strained lateral collateral ligament in Week 15 against the Baltimore Ravens. He has been throwing since late April and that showed in his good velocity.

Griffin read off a script of plays designed by the training staff so he doesn’t do too much, too fast. He threw with good zip and accuracy to a group that included tight end Fred Davis, who suffered a torn Achilles tendon last October.

So exhale, Redskins Nation, RGIII is on the mend and appears on schedule for his stated goal of returning at the start of the 2013 season.

The question is: When will RGIII return to taking first-team snaps in his ahead-of-schedule rehabilitation?

The quarterback will address his progress with reporters after today’s offseason practice session.

Griffin’s father told USA TODAY Sports May 17 that his son is still on track to return for the Sept. 9 season opener — a Monday night game at home against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Coach Mike Shanahan said he won’t risk Griffin’s career to start him in the regular-season opener and that he is completely comfortable with backup Kirk Cousins, who helped direct the Redskins to two wins last season. The former Michigan State standout relieved Griffin when he initially suffered the LCL strain Week 15 against Baltimore followed by his subsequent start and win against Cleveland.

While Shanahan has been insistent that the team will continue to run the read-zone option attack that enabled RGIII to earn Offensive Rookie of the Year honors, it is a clear some scaling back is necessary to limit Griffin’s exposure to reinjury.

Griffin ran 120 times for 815 yards with seven touchdowns, while throwing for 20 touchdowns and five interceptions as he set a record for highest passer rating by a rookie quarterback.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — When Elvis Dumervil took the podium as the first Baltimore Raven to follow coach John Harbaugh after Wednesday’s offseason practice, reigning Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco gave the recently signed pass rusher grief from the back of a pack of reporters.

“What the hell, Elvis?!” Flacco said in his deadpan way.

It was a light jab from the new leader of a franchise facing life without Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and Anquan Boldin and five other starters lost from the team that beat the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII fewer than four months ago.

“We lost some vocal leaders,” tight end Dennis Pitta said. “Joe’s not as vocal. But he’s always been a leader. He leads in a different way. He’s not as vocal a guy as Ray Lewis and Ed Reed. But he leads in his own way, through example and his confidence in his own play.”

Harbaugh defused a question about facing life without Lewis, the team’s spiritual leader since it was uprooted from Cleveland and rechristened in Baltimore in 1996.

“Ray wasn’t here in the offseason anyway, so it’s (business) as usual,” Harbaugh said. “It’s normal. Ray’s always going to be a part of us. … As this team goes forward and tries to build it’s legacy, we’ll see what we can do with it.

“We’ll fill the leadership right up. I can see guys doing it already.”

Harbaugh added that nothing, not the Super Bowl performance or the new six-year, $120.6 million deal he signed in March is going to change the low-key, yet deceptively fiery Flacco.

“Joe’s been a great leader,” Harbaugh said. “Joe is going to be who he is. A change in the roster or his contract isn’t going to change Joe.”

So he won’t be the last Raven coming out of the tunnel at home games trying to fire up his teammates prior to kickoff?

“No, Joe won’t be doing the squirrel dance,” Harbaugh said, referencing Lewis’s signature way of amping his team and M&T Bank Stadium.

Dumervil is new to the Ravens, but he knows what can’t be done.

“You can’t replace a first-ballot Hall of Famer, probably one of the best players ever,” Dumervil said of Lewis (though the statement could easily apply to Reed, too). “All you can do is learn from the past. He set the tone. You have to learn from that and try to keep it going.

“You have to go out and play. Ray walked the walk and talked the talk.”

The cannon-armed Flacco set that tone on the second day of organized team activities, effortlessly flicking passes to Pitta, Torrey Smith, Ed Dickson, Tandon Doss and Deonte Thompson, the latter two attempting to emerge as the replacement for the traded Boldin.

Maybe the best thing Flacco radiates to his teammates is how unflappable and hard-working he remains in the wake of the massive post-Super Bowl overhaul.

“The only thing different is that I probably don’t know 80% of the guys names on our team at this point,” Flacco said on a day when veterans such as Terrell Suggs and Haloti Ngata skipped the workout.

“You can probably count on one hand how many guys were actually here five years ago who are still here today. That’s how much our team has changed over in that short period of time. … I’m excited about who we have.”

No question the Ravens have gotten younger. Time will tell if they’re good enough to become the first team since the 2004 New England Patriots to repeat as Super Bowl champions.

Despite his new, nine-figure deal and higher profile which led to appearances such as the one on Late Night with David Letterman, Flacco said what could have been a crazy offseason was anything but dizzying.

“It can get crazy I guess if you’re somebody who likes to do a lot of things and have a lot of opportunities present themselves,” Flacco said. “I don’t usually do that stuff anyway. So that’s pretty typical for me.

“It was a little bit more crazy right after the season, but it was all good stuff. It’s a spot you never know if you’re going to experience again. So you take advantage of them while you can. … And for the last little while I was able to relax a little bit and enjoy life as normal.”

It’s just a new normal with the Flacco-led, Lewis-less Ravens.

“I honestly don’t think too much about the contract,” said the quarterback as he prepares for his sixth NFL season. “I don’t have a Super Bowl ring yet, but I will in a couple of more weeks. And that’s all good.

“I can honestly say, those things aren’t things I think about everyday that set the way I perform. We’ve always had a locker room with so many guys who are so responsible. That’s why we’ve continued to have success.”

Spoken like the guy looking to continue that trend.

***

Follow Jim Corbett on Twitter @ByJimCorbett

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

Robert Griffin III has been throwing a football since late April, his father told USA TODAY Sports on Friday.

The 2012 offensive rookie of the year appears ahead of schedule and on track to realize his goal of starting the Washington Redskins’ Sept. 9 Monday night season opener against the Philadelphia Eagles

RGIII wrote himself on his Twitter account that his throwing regimen included “a couple roll out throws…But some take Friday off.”

It is another positive sign that the second-year quarterback’s reconstructed right knee is getting stronger and his mobility is returning four months and eight days removed from Jan. 9 surgery to repair torn anterior cruciate and lateral collateral ligaments suffered late in a wild-card playoff loss to Seattle.

“Robert is doing extremely well as far as the timetable,” Robert Griffin II sald. “He’s been doing a lot over time, he never stops.

“He was throwing some prior to the draft. Everything seems to be on cue. Everybody in the organization is targeting that season opener.”

Griffin’s father said his son is ahead of schedule by comparison to his prior rehabilitation from a torn ACL of his right knee suffered while playing for Baylor University four years ago.

“He might be a little ahead of himself in terms of doing what he did then compared to now,” RGII said. “He’s smarter, stronger, wiser.”

Redskins coach Mike Shanahan told USA TODAY Sports that while Griffin is ahead of schedule, the team’s doctors and training staff are being careful not to let him do too much, too soon and that he won’t jeopardize RGIII’s career just to have him start Week 1.

“What you don’t want is to do something too quick,” Shanahan said. “The muscles around the ligaments feel very good. But you don’t want to do something to set it back.

“One thing we’re getting Robert to do — and the doctors are telling him: ‘You can only do so much at this point in the rehab program.’

“We’re just trying not to push him too hard.”

Griffin last season threw for 20 touchdowns with five interceptions while running for 815 yards and seven more scores.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.