Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III has closed the gap with Andrew Luck, but the Stanford product is still the favorite in the eyes of NFL scouts.
Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports spoke to 15 scouts, and 14 of them preferred Luck to Griffin.
Griffin’s size and college system were held against him. Luck is the safer choice, and scouts often play it a little safer than decision makers like general managers and coaches.
“We’re splitting hairs because they are both great kids,” one NFC personnel man told Cole. “But I’ll say this about Luck: The minute he took over at Stanford, he looked the part.”
That’s probably the biggest knock against Griffin. He doesn’t fit the prototypical quarterback mold, which makes life a little more uncomfortable for the teams that draft him.
This isn’t a situation like Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf, where one of the players is a “character” concern. It ‘s hard to remember two prospects more widely respected, responsible, and intelligent than Griffin and Luck.
There is a similarity to the ’98 draft, though, in another way: Like Manning and Leaf, Luck and Griffin will always be tied together in NFL history.