Shaquill Griffin, clutching his cellphone to his ear and grinning, didn’t have to say anything. His twin brother, Shaquem, knew right away, from across the living room. The physical reaction was undeniable.
“I kind of dropped to the ground,” Shaquill recalled. “My brother was on the couch, looking at me crazy because obviously my eyes start to water up. So he knew what happened.”
What got Griffin to fall to his knees were four simple words from his agent, Buddy Baker: And with that, in a year as tough as any has been in a decade for free agents in NFL, the former Seahawk Pro-Bowler sealed a move back across the country to his home state and scored the sort of second-contract payday that every player enters the pros looking to get.
By the time Griffin, Baker and I got on a three-way call late Tuesday afternoon to talk about all this, while the emotion had subsided a little, Griffin was still overwhelmed enough to admit that he really hadn’t had the chance yet to put in perspective the path he’d taken from drills with his dad in the yard to Lakewood High in St. Petersburg to UCF and then the NFL. His plan was to spend some time on Wednesday reflecting.
But he did have a singular memory from the day that’ll stand out forever.
Some people believe twins have a symbiotic relationship, and a connection that’s unspoken. If that’s true, then this scene in the Houston-area house the Griffin brothers recently bought together is proof, because just as Shaquill had a physical reaction to the life-changing news, Shaquem, himself a free agent, had a physical reaction of his own.
Shaquem, before Shaquill could even get off the phone, starting crying, then started coughing, then bolted out of the room, and then Shaquill heard something unmistakable.
“I think he threw up, actually, if I’m not mistaken,” Shaquill said. “You might need to ask him on that one. I think he threw up. I think he was more excited than I was. I’m gonna let you ask him on that one.”
We did get Shaquem to reluctantly confirm that he did, indeed, lose his breakfast late on Tuesday over the big news.
And who could blame him? In an instant, he saw his twin get $40 million richer.
