Closing Out The NFL Draft

Following up on last week’s NFL Pre-Draft rant, I said I would track the draft status of the 62 players I mentioned in my original posting.  The objective here is not to predict the NFL value of any of these draftees or non-draftees; that will not really be known for at least 2 years and maybe more.  The aim is much more limited than that:

• How close to the reality and finality of the NFL Draft can a TV viewer of college football come with his/her infrequent observations of college football playoffs?

Well, the data are in and shall be presented here.  I want to separate 2 players from the 62 players on my original list.  Two players came to me from friends who saw players and knew that I would not see them play – – and they also knew I would be doing an NFL Pre-Draft rant.  So, let me thank my correspondents and point out their record:

• One recommendation was Jordan Magee – LB Temple.  He was drafted by the Commanders in Round 5.
• The other recommendation was John Jiles – WR Western Florida (Division II).  He was undrafted but signed by the Giants as an undrafted free agent the day after the draft concluded.

My two correspondents have done quite well in their “spottings”.

I made comments about 60 players in this year’s NFL Draft.  Here are the data:

• Fifty-eight of my 60 players were drafted somewhere in the 7 rounds of the NFL Draft.
• One player – Jamree Kromah, DE (JMU) – was signed by the Bears as an undrafted free agent the day after the draft.
• One player – Porter Wilson, P – (Duke) – was invited to the Packers minicamp as an opportunity to compete for a roster spot with the Packers.

So, what is the take away here?  The take-away is NOT that I am the moral equivalent of an NFL scout nor is it that NFL teams are spending way too much money on scouting when they could just hire a few guys to watch a lot of games on TV from their couches.  More reasonably:

• I was able to spot potential NFL players in and among college players because I rarely had any rooting interest in the games I was watching – AND –
• I don’t “force myself” to find at least one prospect in every game I watch.

One last comment about the draft …  Everyone here knows that I like to have fun with players’ names.  The Jacksonville Jaguars team name is alliterative; and, in the draft, the Jags took two players similarly alliterative:

• Jarrian Jones (Round 3)
• Jordan Jefferson (Round 4)

Three other NFL teams are similarly alliterative but neither the Buffalo Bills nor the Seattle Seahawks nor the Tennessee Titans drafted players with similar alliterations.  I wonder if the Jags are onto something here…?

Moving on …  In other football-related news, Reggie Bush got his Heisman Trophy back.  He won the award in his college days, but it was “revoked” after an NCAA investigation determined that his family had received “improper benefits”.  The folks who thought that the punishment there was out of proportion with the “crime” are happy with this outcome.

I am not one to praise – or even defend – the NCAA “investigators”; On the whole, they are a feckless entity.  However, in this case I think everyone got it right.

• At the time of the infraction in 2005 – – the “improper benefits” – – it was clearly and obviously against the rules of the NCAA, and it deserved to be sanctioned.
• In the current incarnation of college sports – – with NIL deals in abundance – – everything involved in the “Reggie Bush Matter” seems like small potatoes.

In terms of this particular matter, things have been made right and now the door is open for others to try to reclaim some sort of glory that was denied them in the past because of “different rules” today.

• Should the Fab Five get an apology for taking money from a booster who had already been banned by the NCAA as a rulebreaker?
• Should the family of Jerry Tarkanian get an apology because the NCAA thought something evil might come from a photo of one of Tark’s players in a hot tub with a guy whose moniker was “The Fixer”?

Terelle Pryor was suspended from the Ohio State team and then banned from contacting anyone in the program allegedly for autographing memorabilia for a booster.  In 2024, that sort of thing is an entry on the calendar for dozens of college football players.  There is no point in lifting that suspension; Terrelle Pryor is not about to return to Ohio State and compete for the starting QB position in 2024.

The Reggie Bush situation has been closed; it feels right in 2024 – – but it really does not set much of a precedent for “remedies” in prior college football scandals.

Finally, the mention of scandals today suggests that I close with these words from the playwright, Moliere:

“It is the public scandal that offends; to sin in secret is no sin at all.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………