Courtesy: Fox Sports
Through the coming months hundreds of players will be entering the gauntlet of the NFL Draft process. The players will be poked, prodded, tested and questioned. Yet teams must make judgement calls on what is otherwise a complete crap shoot. Teams must weigh pros and cons of each possible prospect and determine their value in terms of NFL Draft pick and round.
While trying to select a quarterback in the NFL Draft can change the fate of a franchise for better or worse. A hit at the most important position on the field and the team could be a perennial contender for the next decade. A miss can set back a roster years, as the personnel will have to be retooled long after the bust is gone. Along with the head coach and front office are usually dissembled after striking out at quarterback during the NFL Draft.
But teams seem to never learn when it comes to their evaluation process of signal-callers. There has been one consistent trait that leads to failure at quarterback in professional football: Immaturity. It seems every off season some team becomes overzealous to find a franchise player in the NFL Draft. Willingness to ignore the warning signs leads to teams ending back up in the bottom third in the league, while still scrambling to fill that all too valuable position.
Though not all NFL Draft busts at quarterback had the ‘Immaturity’ label, yet all who had that label have not lived up to expectations. Over the past thirty years, there have been a long list of ultra-talented prospects that would simply disappoint throughout their careers. Those who cannot handle the responsibilty as the team leader, while simply burning out with teams over a period of time.
Courtesy: NY Daily News
The Indianapolis Colts selected quarterback Jeff George with the first overall pick in the 1990 NFL Draft. After four years, the Colts had to move on from the immature gun-slinger and traded him to the Atlanta Falcons. Teams kept banking on his head catching up to his arm talent, but he consistently left them with only glimmers of what could have been. George was signed by eight different teams during his 15 year career.
The league so the likes of the 2nd pick in the 1998 NFL Draft in Ryan Leaf blow up…literally. Luckily for the Indianapolis Colts, they did not make the same mistake with the top pick for the second time and pass up on Peyton Manning for his services. Leaf was out of the league in just four volatile years and left the San Diego Chargers back to the draft board.
Quarterbacks Tim Couch, Michael Vick, Vince Young, Matt Leinart, Jamarcus Russell and Josh Freeman all had questions before the NFL Draft about their maturity level to handle to position. Only Vick (who arguably is the most physically talented of the bunch) is still in the league and is relegated to back up duty at this point. He also had to spend a year and a half in prison for his dog-fighting conviction.
Now the new class of quarterbacks has its own immature flame outs. Robert Griffin III has rubbed people the wrong way within the Washington Redskins organization with his off season antics and campaigns. He may be on his way out relatively soon after just three seasons, even though the team mortaged their future on him with three first round picks.
Geno Smith’s immaturity issues contributed to him falling into the second round where the New York Jets selected him. Not before he stormed out of the actual NFL Draft and fired his agent since he was left waiting to be hearing his named called for an extra 24 hours. He has spent his first two years as one of the worst quarterbacks in the league in most of the prominent passing categories.
Courtesy: NY Daily News
While the ultimate lightning rod of immature quarterbacks in Johnny Manziel saw his rookie season finish in utter failure for the Cleveland Browns. He made more headlines for his off-field antics than his actual play. Manziel saw action in three games and did not resemble a NFL quarterback in any form. Early results would deem the franchise wasted the 22nd pick (which they received for Trent Richardson from the Indianapolis Colts) on a player that advertised his blatant lack of maturity throughout his college career.
And now Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston finds his name floated around the top overall players entering the NFL Draft. Will the Tampa Bay Buccaneers be willing to select him first overall in hopes that the NFL will change his ways? Though a player with all the intangibles that any team could ask for on the field, it is his off-field issues that may hold him back. Will Winston be the one to break the trend for those quarterbacks with the immature label? It is doubtful, yet some team will take that risk and make up excuses for why those issues can be overlooked.
But in the end, the saying goes “the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same exact thing and expect different results.” This certainly applies to NFL Draft when it comes to immature quarterbacks. Teams have thought for decades that they can change the course of the unfledged signal-callers. But by all means they shouldn’t really rely on history to pick their possible faces of their franchise. Right?
