National Signing Day

I'd draft Winston. I'd sure as shit not draft Mariota. He might make it, he might be a fine player, but I don't see a guy who can throw on time, in tight spaces, with pre-determined routes. It's all this option route stuff. You either run that offense -- which I still think doesn't work for the NFL -- or I wouldn't even draft the guy.

The passing stats have messed with people's brains. I'll say this to old-time colleagues -- option QBs in the 1980s and 1990s never got a lick of credit for running a good option play -- which is much harder, in my estimation, than throwing a bubble screen or a pitch pass -- so we presume quarterbacking has taken off. It hasn't, really. We've just changed who gets the stats. Neither one of those guys will work in the league. It was almost embarrassing watching Manziel last year. Griffin isn't much better. Gruden threw the guy under the bus, but he finally had to come out and say "look, people, he doesn't even know how many steps to take."

 

Rivals has added two sixth-grade prospects to its recruit data base:

Rivals starts monitoring its first sixth graders ever - College Football - SI.com

 

I'm pretty sure that's a sign of the apocalypse.

But, as noted elsewhere, this is about Rivals partnering with exposure camps and making giant piles of money.

And, in fairness, this has sorta happened before. How many years ago was it when SI ranked the top elementary school basketball players?