Whatever general misgivings some of us might have about the Washington Redskins, one thing was not in dispute after their somewhat unexpected 40-32 win over the New Orleans Saints yesterday: Robert Griffin III lived up to the hype, maybe even surpassed it.

In his first NFL start, Griffin didn’t just put up the best numbers of the four rookie quarterbacks who played yesterday, he was one of the best quarterbacks in the entire league. Griffin completed 19 of 26 passes for 320 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions, accumulating the top passer rating of any quarterback who played yesterday.

Perhaps the most amazing feat yesterday was the Redskins’ score, the highest since Mike Shanahan took the reins in 2010. Shanahan’s tenure in Washington has been marked by a series of underwhelming quarterbacks (see: McNabb, D.; Grossman, R.) and a moveable feast of running backs, but everything seemed to click yesterday.

But Griffin, whom the Redskins took with the No. 2 pick in this year’s NFL Draft after leveraging future first-round draft picks, was the main event. And he satisfied both the expectations of his playing ability as well as making the Redskins’ frequently crabbed fans feel good about themselves for once. As the Post reports, a throng of Washington fans who trekked to New Orleans broke into song when Griffin greeted them before he headed off the field:

A cluster of rowdy Redskins fans descended to the lower rows of the stadium and began singing “Hail to the Redskins” as the team headed off the field and to the locker room. Griffin, who high-fived fans, was the last player into the tunnel as the fans cheered for him.

Moreover, as the Post’s Mike Wise writes today, Griffin seemed completely unaffected by the noise surrounding his much-anticipated debut. He seemed almost unnaturally calm in facing the Saints, who while missing much of their coaching staff amid a bounty-hunting scandal, are still formidable. Writes Wise:

“The one thing I try to do is not stress about anything or to go out and prove anything to anyone,” he said after outplaying Saints quarterback Drew Brees, who will one day go to the Hall of Fame. “I just go play and have fun; this is a game that I have played for a long time.”

Again, he added, “My mind was really clear going into this game.”

This is what walking into the World Series of Poker for the first time must be like. No one knows your tells, your strategy or your style. No one knows anything about you other than what they’ve seen and heard about you in smaller games.

But it should be said again that the NFL season is only a week old. The Redskins won the first game of the 2011 season, upsetting the New York Giants. And though the Redksins swept the Giants last year, they finished 5-11. The Giants, meanwhile, had a much different conclusion to their season.

But that’s not to say the ebullience today is undeserved. Griffin delivered the skill, poise and on-field leadership that football pundits spent the better part of the year playing up. And a team that so often promotes its new recruits like supernatural saviors might have pulled it off this time.

And yeah, for now, those Giants are sitting on the bottom of the NFC East.