| Forgive me if I am a little bit confused, but as
I write this, I am going through NFL draft detox. As much fun as it is to sit back and
watch pick after pick, round after round, hour after hour, after a while, the whole
process can play tricks on the mind. One of the tricks that comes to mind is the message
that this year’s draft selection process sends to the next crop of potential NFL
prospects. I guarantee you, thousands of young and impressionable college football players
kicked back in the athletic dorms of their universities last weekend and watched
ESPN’s draft coverage.
As they watched, dreams of NFL stardom — and the riches that accompany such
status — danced merrily through their minds. Hey, what are we without dreams?
After seeing the success that underclassmen were having on the first day of the 2000
draft, the path of some of these young men may be influenced.
By my count, a total of 40 underclassmen declared themselves eligible for the 2001 NFL
draft, even though they had remaining college eligibility. Of those players, 13 were taken
in the first round. Not bad, not bad at all.
QB Michael Vick started things off with the first overall pick, and he
was followed by DT Gerard Warren (second), DE Justin Smith
(fourth), WR David Terrell (eighth), WR Koren Robinson
(ninth), OT Kenyatta Walker (14th), CB Nate Clements
(21st), CB Willie Middlebrooks (24th), WR
Freddie Mitchell (25th), CB Jamar Fletcher (26th),
RB Michael Bennett (27th), DT Ryan Pickett (29th)
and TE Todd Heap (31st).
Each of those guys should be relatively pleased, even though several of them likely
would have gone higher in the first round with another collegiate season under their
belts. You certainly can’t fault Vick for coming out early, if you judge the move
solely from a financial standpoint. He wouldn’t have gotten much more up-front money
in 2002 than he will be getting this year.
On the other hand, though, he could have become a better all-around quarterback had he
stayed in school another season or two. Pro Football Weekly’s own draft guru Joel
Buchsbaum wrote of Vick: "By coming out this early, he has a far greater chance of
never fully realizing his potential in the NFL." I think most NFL people would agree
that Vick would have been a much more polished prospect, with a greater chance of
early-career success, had he stayed in school another season or two.
Walker could have been a top-five pick next season had he stayed in school for one more
season. Bennett also could have improved his position in the first round. Of Bennett,
Buchsbaum wrote: "No underclassman running back who came out could have used an extra
year in school to learn and develop more than this player." As for Pickett, Buchsbaum
had this to say: "He would have been a much better prospect if he had returned to
Ohio State for his fourth year."
Again, I fully understand it’s hard to walk away from, let’s say, $5 million
now, in hopes of getting $6 million next year. It might not be worth it financially. But
if you are all about becoming the best player you can be, you should take advantage of the
maturing experience, as both a person and a player, that you can get from the extra time
on a college campus.
But it’s not the first-round underclassmen that I’m so concerned about.
I’m thinking about next year’s prospects who may have been fooled into thinking
they, too, are going to be first-round picks. Sure, many of them will be. Multiple
underclassmen are picked in the first round every year.
But there are a bunch of others who don’t go in the first round — or the
second round, or the third round. While the phone was ringing Saturday afternoon for a
number of highly sought-after players, nearly as many didn’t get the call. For 19
underclassmen in this draft, they spent a very long Saturday night wondering what had
happened, because no team phoned with good news.
When the second day of the draft rolled around, when rounds four through seven were
decided, eight more were drafted.
So do the math. In the first round, 13 underclassmen were taken. Eight went in the
second and third rounds, while 11 more went in the final four rounds. That means that 32
of 40 underclassmen were selected. That also means that eight players who chose to declare
early went completely undrafted.
Did they get some bad advice from a pushy agent? Did they suffer from delusions of
grandeur? Did they truly need money immediately, and felt comfortable passing up
potentially more later for what was necessary now? I don’t know. I suspect the truth
contains a little bit of each of those scenarios.
So when the prospects who consider coming out early next year, instead of thinking
solely about the Michael Vicks and Gerard Warrens of the world, I hope they will remember
these names: Alex Ardley, Ronney Daniels, Lloyd Garden, Derin Graham, Delvin
Jones, Jonathan Ordway, Ja’Mar Toombs, and Reggie White.
Those are the guys who didn’t get a call during the draft. |
