NFL: A few things you may not know about the top two QBs in the draft
Written by playerpress.com, Monday February 20 2012
(PhatzRadio / SI) — It’s time to meet and get to know a whole new group of NFL prospects. Starting Thursday in Indianapolis, 326 players, 750 media members and 900 agents or so will collide at the stadium the Manning brothers made famous, Lucas Oil, for the rites of passage from college to pro football known as the NFL Scouting Combine.
Every combine has a story, just as every draft has one. Often it’s about the quarterback. Fourteen years ago, with a significantly smaller media crowd (maybe 10 or 12 reporters) on hand, Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf competed to be No. 1, and Leaf came in overweight and botched his interview with the first-picking Colts, and the rest is history. Five years ago, it was the duel (yikes!) between JaMarcus Russell and Brady Quinn, two guys who clearly did not like each other, for the top spot in the draft. This year, there’s about as much drama accompanying the top pick as 2007. Al Davis wanted the big arm of Russell then. I believe Jim Irsay wants the risk-averse Andrew Luck of Stanford to lead the Colts now. We shall see. But prepare this week for an onslaught of news about Luck and the quarterback sure to be taken very soon after him (likely second if St. Louis trades the pick, or third or fourth if the Rams don’t deal), Baylor’s Robert Griffin III.
I spoke to their two coaches late last week, Art Briles of Baylor and David Shaw of Stanford, just to get a flavor of the two top prospects in the draft, and what impressed me was how similar the two quarterbacks are in many ways.
Both are 22 (born exactly five months apart). Both were recruited by Stanford. (Didn’t know that, did you? Shaw, then Stanford’s offensive coordinator, went hard after Griffin, even with Luck already in house; Griffin preferred Baylor, where he knew he’d have a chance to play early and often after starring at Briles’ football camp.) Both were high school stars in Texas. (Luck at Houston Stratford, Griffin at Copperas Cove.) Both declared for the draft with a year of college eligibility left. Both starred academically; Griffin graduated with a 3.67 grade-point average in political science, and Luck was an academic All-America in architectural design and engineering. Both are athletic, though Griffin’s more of an athlete. He had a Cam Newton-type career, with 2,199 rushing yards and 32 rushing touchdowns at Baylor.
But what’s most interesting aside from the football is what both coaches stressed about their players. I asked both coaches to tell me about the life each man is about to dive into. In college, there was pressure on the shoulders of both Luck and Griffin, obviously. College football is a pressure-packed sport at the level each was playing in. But, I told Shaw and Briles, both players are about to enter a different world. There will be pressure to succeed from a city, a region and the national and local media, and to succeed right away. They will be playing for teams, in all likelihood, that were not very good in 2011. They’ll be looked at as saviors.
“How will they respond?” I asked.
Shaw, on Luck: “You saw the USC game this year. Andrew threw an interception in the fourth quarter that they returned for a touchdown to put them up, and then we had to respond. He went to everybody on the offense on the sideline. His message was the same up and down the sideline: ‘We have no choice here. We’re going to take the ball downfield and score, and we’re gonna win.’ He drove them to the tying touchdown, and we won in overtime. That’s who he is. He will not accept failure, in anything. Wherever he goes, he will have a drive to succeed. And when he gets picked, all the extraneous stuff, he’ll do what he has to do.
“But all the stuff he can’t control, I guarantee you he won’t worry about it. He’s a guy who will have faith in his coaches. I can’t tell you how smart he is. I used to tell him, ‘OK, take the stuff you don’t want out of this game plan. Kill the plays you don’t like.’ He hated that. HATED it. The way he knows football, the coach coaches, and he plays. So wherever he goes, he’s going to master what is in his control, and he’s going to forget everything else. It’s not his job.
“One other thing: I remember early on at Stanford, I told him one time, ‘Andrew, this is your huddle, take charge of the huddle.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Coach, before that can be my huddle, I have to earn it. I don’t want it handed to me.’ That is how he will approach the NFL — like whatever he gets, he’ll earn. The position is about finding completions, about moving the offense. You watch how he played, how he checked down, how he always found the open receiver. He will have no ego about throwing the ball deep or throwing it short. He’ll be throwing for completions.”
Briles, on Griffin: “The thing about Robert is he’s a football player. Some of his happiest times are not when he’s done something great himself, but when he’s done something for a teammate. You ask him about our bowl game against Washington this year, and he’ll tell you the play he loved was making a block downfield to spring our ballcarrier. That’s what his new team will realize about him. It’s not about the stats, or the fame. It’s about elevating the team any way he can.
“I believe with Robert that going to a team that isn’t very good will be inspiring to him. Because he’ll realize he has to elevate that team any way possible. If you allow people responsibility, you’ll soon find out if they have the capacity to handle it. Robert always could handle as much as you gave him. And I don’t mean to keep coming back to this but a leader on a team is one who cares for everyone else before he cares for himself. And the excitement and gratitude he has for others on his team … it’s something I saw every game he ever played. That’s going to translate to the NFL. This is a great team player.”
More about Griffin and Luck from Indy later in the week.
It’s all good now. The news always is in February. But the sense you get from the scouts and GMs who are studying both players is you won’t find many holes in either one — and certainly not on the personal side.
NFL: A few things you may not know about the top two QBs in the draft is a post from: PhatzRadio.com
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Tags: Andrew Luck, NFL, NFL Draft, Robert Griffin III
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