(John McDonnell - The Washington Post) Combine a charismatic rookie who plays the NFL’s most marketable position with a large and long-suffering fan base and what do you get? A list of NFLShop.com May jersey sales with Robert Griffin III’s name on top. Like, first. The most in the NFL.

The league also released its NFLShop.com sales figures from April 1-May 28 on Tuesday, and even though rookie jerseys didn’t go on sale until April 26, Griffin still ranks third in that span, behind just Peyton Manning and Tim Tebow. Andrew Luck is fourth, both in the month of May, and in the April 1-May 28 span.

(Eight of the top 10 jerseys in that span belong to quarterbacks — Eli Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and Cam Newton are also on the list.)

That puts Griffin well ahead of the usual NFC East suspects, like the younger Manning (5th) DeMarcus Ware (19th), Jason Witten (22nd) and Michael Vick (25th).

Redskins fans have done this before; Donovan McNabb had the NFL’s second-highest selling jersey after he was traded to D.C. But I haven’t been able to figure out the last time a Redskin had the top-selling jersey in the league. LaVar Arrington? Heath Shuler? Doug Williams? Am I forgetting someone else? Regardless, Griffin has already done something that very few Redskins have done over the past two decades.

There have been other D.C. jersey bright spots since I started this blog:

* As recently as 2010, Alex Ovechkin had the top-selling jersey in the NHL.

* In the 2010-2011 season, Nicklas Backstrom had the NHL’s 7th-best selling jersey.

* In June of 2010, Stephen Strasburg had MLB’s top-selling jersey. (Although the Nats had zero players on last year’s top-selling MLB list.)

* During the height of his bloggy popularity, Chris Cooley had the NFL’s 19th-best selling jersey.

The Wizards...yeah.

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