[quote]overstand wrote:
[quote]strungoutboy21 wrote:
What if, what if, what if. I say good for him. Not everything is about money. It seem to work out for Bradford even though he got hurt. I’d say he is in a better spot being on the Rams rather than the Lions.[/quote]
For every Bradford, there’s a Vince Young, Matt Leinart, Ryan Leaf, Jamarcus Russel etc etc. How may first round QBs have we seen go bust in the NFL? Too many. Bradford wasn’t facing a new CBA with rookie salary caps either. 78 million with 50 some guaranteed contracts are a thing of the past. All of those guys are set for life even though they didn’t make it in the NFL.
Look at Jake Locker. Decided to stay in school, went from #1/#2 push with Bradford to 4th behind Gabbert, Mallet and Newton. Now he’s probably not a top 10 pick, and some analysts have him falling to the 2nd round. And he only stayed for one year. Same thing happened with Jevan Snead and that Hawaii QB.
There is also very good chance Harbaugh will leave for the NFL and Stanford won’t be as good next season.
He seems like a good guy and I hope it works out for him. But damn he’s going to look stupid as hell if it doesn’t.
“Yeah, I passed up millions and millions of dollars, but atleast I got a college degree!”[/quote]
Guys like Russell, Leaf and maybe even Leinart basically have to live off their big signing bonuses from their rookie contract for the rest of their lives now. Russell most likely won’t ever be back in the NFL, Leaf clearly won’t and Leinart’s probably one beer bong away from being out too.
Luck won’t be like that. Nothing is a sure thing, but Luck is probably as close as it gets, barring injury. He’s not really missing out on that much money. He’ll still get the max available as a rookie, which won’t be $50 million, but it won’t exactly be peanuts either. And he’ll keep making a shitload. Plus, he’s not exactly wallowing in poverty as it is; his dad is a former NFL QB and the AD at West Virginia and if Luck does happen to bomb out, he’ll already have a legit degree that will enable him to enter the workforce the second his NFL career is over.
On top of all that, by staying in college for one more year, he probably gets that much better as a player, which will translate into more prolonged success at the NFL level, which in turn translates into more money. Russell and Leaf are just two QBs that come to mind who might have fared better in the NFL if they had spent one more year maturing at the college level. Mark Sanchez is a pretty good QB, but realistically he isn’t quite lighting up the League either (although he’s still light years ahead of Russell, Leaf AND Leinart) and he might have benefited from one more year at USC.
One other thing: Luck staying in college gives him a chance to compete for the national title next year. Stanford is going to be pretty fucking stacked with him at QB again. If he does win the nat’l title with Stanford, or win the Heisman (he’s already the front-runner for next year), his marketability increases big-time, regardless of how his pro career turns out. That nat’l title or the Heisman makes his chances of scoring some huge endorsements as soon as he turns pro much better.