Welcome to Washington, D.C. It’s a city of public service workers and tourists who are from the North and are therefore happy that their Union Army and Lincoln created such a magnificent rip-off of Rome, or are from the South and are a little pissed that there’s only one monument to Robert E. Lee.

It’s also the city where quarterbacks last longer than Clippers optimism. It’s a city where the last great ball chucked was Joe Theisman, even though they cobbled together some success with No Name White Guy and a Guy Who Was Famous Only For Being Asked a Dumb Question About How He Was Black.

Now, it’s the city of Robert Griffin III and of Mike Shanahan, a coach and authoritarian autocrat who invented his own football religion and – if you believe everyone else – loves to kill quarterbacks’ promise, even though he and John Elway won two Super Bowls together (?).

Robert Griffin III (RG III) is now making bank. On Tuesday, His Mobile One signed a four-year, $21 million deal with the Skins, which effectively means that Washington wants him to be the one thing they haven’t had since Theisman – a franchise quarterback.

That’s right, D.C. Scoop them up in their infancy, nurse them through the teething stage, and then watch as they get nominated Valedictorian and you snap photos while whispering to your wife, “Is this damn thing on?” Or, wait, has Griffin already done all that? He won the (T)Heisman and all, and he studies hard, they say. He’s engaged (or, is it married now?) and he wears Superman socks.

Either Robert Griffin III has made every wrong decision to this point, or he’s made every right decision. It all depends on your thoughts on getting married young, really.

Of course, we’re grasping at comedy-starved straws here. RG III is pretty much perfect as a human being, and he’s shown no signs to indicate that he’s not worth what Washington just grabbed him for, even if it’s only for four years at this point.

That said, there seems to be an inherent flaw in the psyche of too many teams today, across all national pastimes and all divides. The thought seems to be, that if Peyton Manning and Tom Brady could deliver for (essentially) one team for their entire career, then we need that, too.

Well, sure, it’s great to have. Any NHL team would have loved to draft Steve Yzerman or Joe Sakic. Same goes for Derek Jeter.

But, it has to be authentic. There’s a reason why Drafts start with a lottery… it’s luck and fortune.

You can’t fake this stuff, and you can’t turn a draft pick into Peyton, or Tom. You can’t turn Matthew Stafford into the end-all-be-all, even if he’s good. It doesn’t mean he’s going to be Peyton, or Tom. Only tow guys are.

Hopefully, for Griffin – or Andrew Luck – that isn’t how their of them is defined.