>> You’re skipping the $400mm NASA COTS contract that came a year earlier.
You have it backwards, the DARPA Falcon project was awarded in 2003 (before Falcon rocket was even named!) COTS was 2005, and in no small part due to Griffin as mentioned.
The Griffin connections go back to SpaceX's founding (they examined ICBMs together in Russia and even presented together at Mars Society). SpaceX was founded months after SDI's main barrier, the ABMT Treaty, was withdrawn from by the U.S. The first contracts by SpaceX were part of Prompt Global Strike (DARPA Falcon Project) which was a proposed hypersonic delivery system for boost-phase interceptors.
You have it backwards, the DARPA Falcon project was awarded in 2003 (before Falcon rocket was even named!) COTS was 2005, and in no small part due to Griffin as mentioned.