The National Football League’s annual player draft is scheduled for later this week, and despite the fact that the league and its’ players are locked in a labor dispute, there is still plenty of excitement among fans as their teams add what are hopefully the missing pieces to becoming a competitive championship contender. Inevitably, some of the most hyped players in this year’s draft will turn out to be busts. Finding a franchise quarterback has been a hit and miss thing over the years. For every Peyton Manning and Phillip Rivers, there is a Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch or JaMarcus Russell. Teams like the Cincinnati Bengals, Arizona Cardinals and Buffalo Bills regularly blow it on high draft picks, so it’s not an accident that those teams are perennial losers. Look at the names over the years for these teams – for the “Bungles”, there’s Ki-Jana Carter, Peter Warrick, Akili Smith, Dan Wilkinson and David Klingler. The Cardinals have chosen Matt Leinart, David Boston, Eric Swann, Kelly Stouffer and Steve Pisarkiewicz. Buffalo’s picks have included Walt Patulski, Tom Ruud, Erik Flowers, J.P.Losman, Mike Williams and Tom Cousineau. When the Bills picked O.J. Simpson first overall in 1969, it turned out to be a pretty good pick. The second pick that year, made by the Philadelphia Eagles, was defensive back Leroy Keyes. Leroy who?
So when the NFL teams begin choosing college players this Thursday and then do interviews praising their picks as the greatest athletes ever, remember these names – Ryan Leaf, Brian Bosworth, Tony Mandarich, Todd Marinovich, Rick Mirer, Andre Ware, Jeff George, “Pacman” Jones, Art Schlichter, Lawrence Phillips and Todd Blackledge. This list of draft busts includes a combination of players who were over-hyped, self-promoted (remember “The Boz”?), chemically enhanced, emotionally immature and even prone to criminal activity.
ESPN has been running a series of programs titled “Jon Gruden’s QB Camp” and “Jon Gruden’s Rookie Camp” in which Gruden, a former Super Bowl-winning NFL coach and current Monday Night Football analyst, puts this year’s draft prospects through the paces, both on the field and in a meeting room/interview atmosphere where he looks at game film of each player, with that player, and asks for explanations of why they made a certain decision, on both good and bad plays. He asks tough questions about the player’s character, and how they’ll handle the media scrutiny when they are in the NFL. The programs offer terrific insight into the personalities and mindsets of each player, and changed my opinion of some players, both positively and negatively. The quarterback programs were especially enlightening, and showed me that some of these guys are a little too much style and not enough substance, while others who are considered second or third round picks might be getting short-changed. ESPN also ran another special that detailed the drafting of Tom Brady and the six quarterbacks who were drafted ahead of him. It included footage of Brady’s combine workouts, where he looked like a skinny, gawky junior high kid who had no business trying to pass himself off as a pro football prospect. It just goes to show you how hard it is to measure a potential player’s heart.