With the assembled media prowling the halls of the Indianapolis Convention Center and the downtown bars and Steak and Shake at 3 a.m. for the last week, it’s harvest time for the annual crop of observations of the most talkative person in the NFL — the unnamed scout.
As you might expect, the modern-day Deep Throat has plenty to say about everyone, but seems to have particularly strong opinions when it comes to the guy who will likely be the first pick in the 2015 NFL Draft.
Via veteran reporter Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, one of the more learned of the unnamed scouts has gone both barrels (#asexpected) on Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston.
“Someone will take him in the first round, but how could you even let that guy in the building?” said the US. “The second law of thermodynamics basically is the more ways something can happen, the more likely it is to happen. That’s true of players. The more ways they can [expletive] up, the more chances they [expletive] up. This guy’s got a lot of stuff that would lean him more likely to be a bust than a good player.”
For one thing, hats off to McGinn for knowing the US who was clearly not a phys ed major in college, which strikes about 75 percent of the pool.
Of course, the “second law of thermodynamics” is a fancy way of saying “I don’t trust the kid,” or “I want to slander the kid so he might be available to my team” or perhaps “I’m just talking out my thermodynamic exhaust pipe over a beer or nine.”
Winston is far from a flawless prospect, largely because of the off-field concerns.
But the (far more rare in this environment) named coach who most people expect to be coaching him next season has already declared himself fine with that part.
And it’s interesting that this scathing evaluation comes as others are praising his football IQ, to go along with the obviously high production in college.
Because this draft lacks the same number of players who move the needle as past drafts, Winston can expect more of this kind of treatment over the next two months.
And to think, we’ve yet to hear the annual rip job of the talented-but-troubled quarterback from Nolan Nawrocki’s trusty band of US sources (#fakesmile), who will doubtless turn Winston into the second coming of JaMarcus Russell.