One Great Season
By now we've all seen the ESPN interview with JaMarcus Russell, and I can't help but wonder a few things.
Every February at the NFL Combine, we hear so much about the Wonderlic test and all the high-pressure meetings between draft hopefuls and team executives. The NFL likes to claim it's the pro sports league most interested in an athlete's mental and intellectual makeup, yet after seeing that Russell interview, it's clear that teams do make exceptions.
Russell's Wonderlic score of 24 (out of 50) is actually considered solid for a rookie quarterback. But with stumpers like these -- "Paper sells for 21 cents per pad. What will four pads cost?" -- perhaps expectations are a bit low.
I hate to pile on because Russell seems like a sincere cat who's probably just another one of those great physical talents who maybe lacked proper guidance somewhere along the way. I really have no idea, but it's probably not too bad a bet because isn't his the most commonly talked-about type of professional athlete? The dumb type?
Although it appears Russell might now be getting advice from Maverick Carter's crew, the bigger mystery remains that a handful of high-ranking officials from a once-proud NFL franchise interviewed him, analyzed him, assessed his aptitude, and then, despite all that, still deemed him worthy of the first pick in the 2007 draft.