An interesting one minute point of view linked here.
I think Saunders is taking the ‘character questions’ topic out of context and is placing it in a vacuum when he compares a draftee to an experienced NFL player like Randy Moss, Pac-man Jones and others.
With the experienced player, the NFL front office can at least assess the risk they are willing to accept. You KNOW what the player can do on the field in the NFL and you therefore know what that production is worth to you off-the-field. And, to some degree, you also know that the off-the-field issues of an existing NFL player does to the player’s ability to perform. Regardless of the issue, you know that Player X has been able to deliver certain performance and keep himself in a position to excel for however many years he has been in the league.
That is a very different equation from drafting an unproven Marvin Austin or Ryan Mallett or Cam Newton or any kid that is deemed to have ‘character questions’.
Not only do draftees (potentially) have off-the-field baggage that is unknown…they also have not yet proven that they can even play at the NFL level; nor have the proven that their ‘character issues’ will not overcome their talent and create a complete bust (ala Lawrence Phillips).
‘Character questions’ are not all the same.
