You can sometimes see the finished product when watching Robert Griffin III. There are times in practice, and we saw it Friday, when he throws in rhythm and it’s a pretty completion. Griffin drops back, quickly reads the defense, throws the ball before the receiver breaks. Life, for the Redskins, at that moment is good.

Griffin, who has held the ball too long at times, made a quick decision on an out route to Pierre Garcon. It’s exactly what I wrote above: the ball arrived as Garcon turned around. Pretty.

And then there was a pass off a zone-read option in which he connected with Leonard Hankerson on a quick pass inside the right seam.

And Griffin made a nice, calm throw on an out to tight end Fred Davis.

But in between Griffin held the ball for 4.09 seconds without throwing the ball. Sometimes there’s a pocket he could have escaped from before the play was blown dead, but not always. And Griffin missed on some intermediate routes, a little off here and there. In one case he threw behind Aldrick Robinson. However, a linebacker was dropping inside and might have taken that lane away. Couldn’t tell from my vantage point.

What does it mean? He’s a rookie. Griffin does not do anything that can’t be corrected with experience. He looks better than Donovan McNabb did two years ago, though McNabb shined in some two-minute situations when he’d pick the defense apart down the field. I haven’t seen Griffin do that, but I remember how many times I dinged McNabb for a poor practice. It was quite often. With Griffin it’s about inconsistencies and learning curves. He’s accurate on some throws (mostly outside the numbers) and needs to improve a little between the hashes in this area. But you don’t see balls in the dirt all the time. Often you see them at the wrong shoulder. That could be still adapting to the timing of a route. Maybe it’s accuracy. Eventually we’ll find out.

But he can do things like this: Jump in the pocket under duress and whip a pass over the top to Terrence Austin. And you do see the backside end or linebacker occasionally pause when he goes to hand off the ball, playing for the bootleg.

I’m anxious to see how this plays out in a game and if Griffin’s play changes when it’s game time vs. Buffalo next week. Keep in mind that some of the plays that don’t work in practice won’t be used in a game. There is a reason it’s called practice.

“All this stuff is gonna get hammered out in the next couple weeks,” quarterback Rex Grossman said. “He does so many good things that they have plenty to work with. … I don’t see anything he can’t do.”

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