Shaquem Griffin - Remarkable Prospect on Argo's Negotiation List

[jerrym]

Shaquem Griffin played DL, LB and safety at the Senior Bowl and was impressive enough to make it to the NFL Combine. Sounds impressive. What's even more impressive is that he is one-handed. He's also on Argo's negotiation list.

Even Shaquem Griffin, the one-handed do-it-all defender from Central Florida and a late invitee to the combine, didn’t expect to do what he did Saturday with his prosthetic left hand . ...


“I got chill bumps watching him bench 20 reps at 225 lb,” said NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock. “I literally choked up a little bit watching him do that.”
On Sunday, Griffin ran the 40-yard dash in 4.38 while doing quickness drills and some on-field testing at Lucas Oil Stadium. ...


Griffin was 4 years old when doctors amputated his left hand a day after his mother found him in the kitchen attempting to cut off his jelly-like fingers, which were in scorching pain whenever he touched anything, the result of amniotic band syndrome, a congenital birth defect.
As a freshman, he couldn’t even lift the 45-pound bar, but then he was fitted with the pros ethic and his mom cried when he did his first pull-up.
“It’s amazing to see how far I’ve come from not being able to bench the bar to throwing up 20 reps of 225 and being able to compete with the best here,” said Griffin, the 2017 American Athletic Conference defensive player of the year.
Griffin played D-line, linebacker and safety at the Senior Bowl. ...

As evidenced by the way they were cheering him on in the bench press, he’s inspiring his fellow draft prospects at the combine.

http://3downnation.com/2018/03/04/on...and-blazes-40/

[KCargosfan]

If for whatever reason this guy doesn't make it in the NFL it'd be great if we signed him. He was absolutely moving in the 40.

[jerrym]

If for whatever reason this guy doesn't make it in the NFL it'd be great if we signed him. He was absolutely moving in the 40.

It looks like he'll get his NFL chance as the scouts at the NFL Combine are estimating him as a third to fifth round draft choice. Incidentally, his twin brother, Shaquill Griffin, is a cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks.

The first time Shaquem Griffin was held out of a football game, he was 8 years old. Football was for people with two hands, an opposing coach told him, and his left hand had been amputated four years earlier as the result of a painful prenatal condition."That was the moment I realized I was always going to have to prove people wrong," Griffin wrote on the Players' Tribune. ...

On Saturday, he bench pressed 225 pounds 20 times with the use of his right hand and a prosthetic device on his left wrist. That was only four reps off the pace of the combine's leader, West Virginia wide receiver Ka'Raun White. On Sunday, he followed that up with a blazing, official time of 4.38 seconds in his first attempt at the 40-yard dash, and a 4.58 in his second. How good was that? Well, the NFL Network reported that 4.38 was the fastest 40 time by a linebacker at the combine since 2003.
After initially not being invited to the combine, Griffin's draft stock has been on the rise, with scouts now predicting he could be taken anywhere from late in the third to the fifth round at next month's draft. Richard Sherman, the Seattle Seahawks' cornerback, tweeted that if Griffin isn't drafted in the first three rounds, "the system is broken." ...

t felt like everyone was talking about Shaquem and his road to the combine, a road that began with surgery when he was 4. That's when doctors decided to amputate his left arm the day after his mother found him threatening to cut off his fingers with a kitchen knife. It was the only way he could think of to cope with the searing pain in his hand, the result of Amniotic Band Syndrome his mother suffered while pregnant, causing an amniotic membrane to wrap around his hand.
"It's a thin tissue you can barely see," Tangie, Griffin's mother, told the Los Angeles Times. "The doctor answered the questions and explained the options. It could be taken off with a needle [during pregnancy], but even the slightest move could have punctured [either of the twins] and it was possible one wouldn't survive. I was not going to take that chance."

Shaquem thus experienced serious pain whenever his fingers were touched or pressured. The night he tried self-surgery, he had hit his hand against the side of the bunk beds he shared with Shaquill, who is older by one minute. The day after surgery, he was playing football again, with his "bandage just dripping blood."
"I didn't care, I was going to play football regardless," he told the Times. "It was tough until I had my fingers removed, but after that I knew I was going to play again. The pain was gone. . . . It didn't hurt when the ball hit."
At the combine, he showed that he can catch passes that might come his way, too. (He had one interception last season.)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/c...305-story.html

[KCargosfan]

Also props to the company that made the prosthetic. It's great that's out there for people to be able to lift.

[jerrym]

Shaquem Griffin, despite having only one hand, was selected in the fifth round of the NFL Draft by Seattle where he'll join his brother Shaquill, meaning the Argos are unlikely to see him anytime soon.

[jerrym]

The first of these two urls has two videos of (1) Shaquill and (2) Shaquem reacting to Shaquem being selected by Seattle. The second url shows him action.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/draft2018/st...s-reaction-nfl

https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/04/29/sh...awks-nfl-draft