Less than 4 years ago, the concept of a player skipping his team’s bowling game to prepare for the blasphemy of the NFL draft. Leonard Fournette of LSU and Christian McCaffrey of Stanford were the pioneers who suspected they finished their teams’ bowling games at the end of the 2016 season, and that without delay triggered a typhoon between sports media and social media.
However, the NFL didn’t care. Both ball carriers were still decided in the 10 most sensitive of the 2017 NFL Draft, and that lack of outcome triggered a developing trend.
There were 16 players who, without even a fraction of the backlash that Fournette and McCaffrey faced, missed bowling games to prepare for last season’s draft.
Five of them (Trey Adams, Hunter Bryant, Nick Coe, Trevon Hill and Brandon Wimbush) have not even been selected, but expect the number of captains to continue to increase in the coming years as the boys realize that the praise of the game at the Tony The Tiger Sun Bowl or Duke’s Mayo Bowl assesses the threat of injury.
Following the replacement in red blouse regulations in 2018, the recent trend in school football has been for players to prepare for up to 4 games before the final to retain one year of eligibility. Field quarterbacks Kelly Bryant and D’Eriq King and open receiver Jalen McCleskey were the best notable players to exercise this option.
It’s not the same as preparing for the draft, but since each of those 3 boys transferred after winning this year’s red jersey, it’s another understandable example of players who set their own interests to what’s most productive for the team.
Is itimaginable that the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a catalyst for the next logical progression: players sit for a total season for draft purposes?
There have already been at least 30 players (and two Power Five conferences) who have withdrawn from the 2020 crusade due to coronavirus issues, adding first-round draft picks Gregory Rousseau (Miami), Micah Parsons (Penn State), Rashod Bateman (Minnesota), Rondale Moore (Purdue), Jaylen Twyman (Pittsburgh) and Caleb Farley (Virginia Tech).
Given the risk of myocarditis, the number of international deaths similar to COVID-19 and the imaginable headaches still unknown to this virus, it would be difficult to blame an unpaid college athlete for deciding that the dangers are not the value of the reward. And, of course, this scenario is very different from that of a player who makes a decision “I’m satisfied with where I’m projected into the simulated draws, so I’m done with school football.”
However, it is fair to ask whether the first thing can in all likelihood lead to the latter.
If that happens, I don’t think it will happen, but I have the concept, it wouldn’t be all at once.
I’d probably start with a guy who decides there’s no smart explanation for why to play the last game of the season for a team below Array500. (Javon Kinlaw of South Carolina may have to launch this trend last November, but he did not.) Then, perhaps the following year, a first-round hope on a team suffering will pass the last two or three games. After that, he’s probably a guy who disconnects after 4 games to take a red blouse and then makes the decision to enter the draft.
And then, maybe in five or ten years, we’ll see a guy like Rousseau or Ja’Marr Chase back the season before it starts.
Why are these two examples, questions? It has nothing to do with the character or commitment of the boy, but with the conditions in which he digs up.
In Rousseau’s case, he probably exploded like a rookie in a red jersey, going from a guy who wasn’t even a starter projected on his team at the end of August to a top 10 projected too early 8 months later. Maybe if Miami had potential for the national championship, it would make sense for him to keep playing.
But in a team that was 6-7 in the past year and has only a little more prospective this year, why injury threats and/or a drop in production that can have a negative effect on draft stock?
In Chase’s case, he has already led the country in yards and touchdowns for an undefeous national champion. What else do you want to prove? If there is a freshman or a sophomore who impresses separately on a dominant team, there is a 125% chance that he or she has been declared for the NBA draft.
But Chase was not allowed to do so after his full-year season and now faces a significant injury or drop in stats with a new quarterback, which can move him from No. 1 WR in draft forums to out of the gates of the most sensible five. Pressed. Even on an LSU team that might prefer to repeat itself as national champion, it might be sensible that Chase, who would probably be one of the five most sensible picks if the 2021 draft were held today, was absent.
There are many reasons not to, of course. The love of the game, the commitment to the team, the dangers of being classified as a coward and the option to waste a level, or just ask the scouts if you had possibly missed a step, are just a few examples, my deterrents.
However, from a purely dollar and cent point of view, it may not be long before someone makes a decision that makes sense.
Brian Costa of the Wall Street Journal wrote in January 2019 about why Trevor Lawrence had thought about taking a break from the 2019 and 2020 seasons, as he had already shown himself enough as a true new student to be more or less blocked. as one of the number one options. Project 2021.
Costa’s article has altered many feathers, however, the core of the argument makes sense. Playing last year and making plans to play this year, Lawrence will be a legend in Clemson, however, the biggest credit he’ll get for 2021 and beyond, that is, his lucrative years, is the extra wear on his shoulders and legs.
But while under threat of injury, Lawrence has also gained an invaluable experience, so I doubt we will ever see a season jumped to a valid post-pandemic trend, especially if men are going to make money with his name, symbol and likeness.
Lawrence had a couple of abrupt intercepts early in the 2019 campaign, but stepped forward in defensive reading and became a valid risk of interference. He also showed NFL groups that he is durable, bouncing off just after that brutal blow he got against Ohio State at the Fiesta Bowl.
In addition, once a player presents the necessary skills to one of the 10 most sensible selections, the NFL has shown in recent years that he is not afraid of the “risks” of injury. Nick Bosa missed all the first 3 games of the 2018 season and it was still the time for the overall team in April 2019.
And despite two ankle surgeries in less than a year in a row of a terrible hip injury in mid-November, Tua Tagovailoa finished fifth overall for the Miami Dolphins five months later.
Maybe things will be replaced in the near future, and we’ll see some warnings that inspire sitting. After all, Jaylon Smith’s injury to Notre Dame’s 2015-16 bowling season roughly led Fournette and McCaffrey not to participate in next year’s bowling games.
For now, however, this is more of a theoretical subject than a serious and viable career.
Kerry Miller covers men’s school basketball and school football for Bleacher Report. You can stay with him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.