One of the agents for Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett is vehemently denying the report that a night on the town in Charlotte caused Mallett to cancel a visit with the Panthers the next morning.
Adam Schefter of ESPN quotes agent J.R. Carroll as saying that on the night in question, April 8, Mallett had dinner in Charlotte with Alabama wide receiver Julio Jones, and that Mallett headed back to his hotel room when he didn’t feel well.
“I’ll tell you this -- Ryan was in his hotel room by about 10 o’clock,” Carroll said.
Carroll said Mallett did meet with Panthers offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski the next morning, but he had to miss the rest of that day’s planned meetings -- because he had genuinely fallen ill, not because he was hung over or bleary-eyed from a long night out.
“I’m pretty sure Ryan was really, really sick,” Carroll said. “He told me he was sick the night before. And I know Ryan wasn’t out late night. I know that for sure. He’s not an idiot.”
Knowing that there are rumors of drug use and red flags stemming from a 2009 arrest for public intoxication, Mallett would have to be either an idiot or a person with a serious problem to go out partying and miss what could have been the biggest job interview of his life.
His agent is obviously going to say he’s neither an idiot nor a person with a serious problem. We’ll find out next week what NFL teams believe.