Fred Smoot Is The One Spreading All Those Rumors About Robert Griffin III's Shredded Knee

The world is eager for word on the condition of Robert Griffin III's knee, which he injured thanks to either his coach or his field or maybe the terms of Dan Snyder's deal with the devil. Mike Shanahan was less than forthcoming at his press conference today, so it's up to the DC-area media to get to the bottom of this.

Fred Smoot did not go to journalism school, although he did stick a double-headed dildo into the vaginas of two women on a sex cruise. He also played two stints for the Redskins before retiring in 2009, and when he went on The Fan radio in Washington this morning, he reported that his sources told him Griffin has a torn ACL and a torn PCL. Those sources? "People in the building."

This got some brief play on Twitter because it was the first concrete mention, no matter how speculative or specious, of a specific diagnosis. It got retweeted by some big media names, who were just passing it on—not vouching for it.

That appeared to be enough for Richmond TV station WRIC, which reported—in language that made it look like their own story—that Griffin's injury was confirmed.

Sources close to the Redskins camps say Robert Griffin III has torn his ACL and PCL, and will not be able to play for a minimum of 14-18 months.

That story is down, but a screengrab can be seen here. Whence the time frame? It's unclear, but a search for "ACL PCL recovery" turns up numerous results that mention 18 months as a maximum recovery time.

ESPN Radio in Washington then tweeted out a link to the WRIC story, and the 14-18 months became gospel. Here are a few blogs still reporting it as fact.

WRIC quickly pulled their story down, and replaced it with a prosaic AP story on how Griffin is going to get further tests on his knee. WRIC then launched a series of bizarre tweets, replying to just about everyone who mentioned them that "this is NOT what we reported," that "we NEVER reported this as exclusive/confirmed info," and that they had "specifically said sources related this info to other media outlets." Which isn't at all what they said, but since no other media outlet had reported this, the only conclusion is that they got their news from Fred Smoot.

ESPN Radio 980 quickly threw WRIC under the bus. Which means all of DC's media infighting, all of Redskins' fans stress and worry, all this fruitless scramble for news that's not going to even be known by the team until tomorrow at the earliest—it's all Fred Smoot's fault.