Andrea Adelson is right. There really is only one choice he can make. Jamies Winston, quarterback and lightning rod of the Florida State Seminoles, announced today he's leaving the university to go to the NFL, certainly as a first round pick, possibly as the very first pick of the draft.
If you're in college training to enter a particular profession, and that profession tells you after two years that you are already the best candidate for their job and they want to hire you and compensate you appropriately for that position, of course you take it. That's why you went to college - and I guarantee that's the only reason Winston went to college. This is not going to be a diatribe on the need for a college education, although for 98% of college players I'm all set to climb on that soapbox in a heartbeat.
No, the question I want to ask is this: Would YOU draft Jamies Winston, knowing what we know publicly about him?
Yes, he's talented - I heard ESPN's "Mike and Mike" arguing today he's the best pure quarterback in the draft since Andrew Luck came out of Stanford three years back, and I'll take their word for it. I'm not sure that even as "pure quarterbacks" go, I wouldn't rather have Marcus Mariota, but let's take their point as given for now.
What and who do you want your quarterback to be? He is the leader of your team. He sets the tone, not only for your offense, but for your entire team. Often, his persona is more important than that of the head coach: watching Peyton Manning in Indy, with Jim Caldwell as his coach, did you ever get the feeling that the team fed off of Caldwell? NO...it was always Peyton running the show.
Speaking of Manning, think back to when he came out of college. Like this year, with Winston and Mariota, there were two consensus "great" QBs coming into the draft: Peyton Manning, from Tennessee, and Ryan Leaf, from Washington State. Both put up numbers and videos that made you drool as a scout; the whole world knew that Indianapolis and San Diego were going to take them one-two. What was the difference between them? Peyton Manning had a reasoned head on his shoulders. At the time (and from recent evidence, probably it's still true), Leaf didn't. The result, of course - Manning is one game short of 70,000 passing yards in his career; Leaf has been out of football for over a decade after playing just 25 games in his two year career.
Character MATTERS, most especially for a quarterback. Ndamukong Suh can have a career as a defensive lineman with a rap sheet like his; receivers can get away with murder (ooooh...sorry, Aaron Hernandez - I guess that's not literally true...). But look at the quarterbacks in the league: Manning, Brady, Rodgers, Brees, Luck, Rivers, Romo, Wilson, Kaepernick, Palmer, Smith, Ryan, Newton, Tannehill, Dalton, Flacco, Stafford... They're all upstanding citizens. The worst you can say about any of the current quarterbacks is that Jay Cutler's sullen and Ben Roethlisberger's bar habits are a little questionable. Exceptions are few and far between. Michael Vick's about the only one that comes to mind: a QB who was successful leading his team, AND had trouble with the law on a regular basis. The others who did - Ryan Leaf, JaMarcus Russell, and (we highly suspect) Johnny Manziel - didn't last long in the NFL, no matter HOW good they were in college.
We will put it in writing right now, on the day Jamies Winston was announced to be coming out for the NFL draft: he will NOT be a successful NFL quarterback. If he's starting for a team in five years, we'll be astounded. Mariota may or may not make it - NOBODY's a sure thing, no matter what they say - because of his training in a "blur offense" style that doesn't translate to NFL teams well. But we'd take him over Winston seven days a week, and twice on Sunday. (Church in the morning, games in the afternoon!)
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