One of the most interesting players still available in the 2010 NFL draft is safety Myron Rolle, who left Florida State with a year of eligibility remaining and spent 2009 as a Rhodes Scholar.
Rolle is talented enough to play in the NFL, but there’s been some talk that teams think he’s more passionate about becoming a doctor and studying the latest developments in stem cell research than in becoming a football player and studying his playbook.
Former NFL player and coach Herm Edwards, working the draft as a commentator for ESPN, said Saturday that he thinks teams are, in fact, concerned about whether football is Rolle’s true passion in life.
“He went to Oxford,” Edwards said. “That’s scary.”
But Edwards believes Rolle’s decision to head to the NFL, when he surely has plenty of other job offers after studying at Oxford, demonstrates that football is, indeed, his first love.
“Here’s a guy that didn’t play his senior year, and I know a lot of people right now are questioning his passion for the game,” Edwards said. “But if you came out of Oxford and got a degree, you’ve got to have some passion, because you’re pretty smart and you’re talking about going to play football. So I think this guy has passion to play football.”
Edwards isn’t the first to bring the subject up. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers asked Rolle if he felt like he deserted the team by going to Oxford, and others have wondered whether Rolle loves the game.
For his part, Rolle says he wants to play in the NFL for a decade.