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Last Chance U

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Has anyone watched this on Netflix?

It’s good. It shows the inner workings of the JUCO route, and it ain’t pretty. There needs to be a “minor leagues” for football, just like in baseball. Some guys aren’t cut out for academics. It’s time the NFL ponies up money and forms their own developmental league.

Question: the Juco coach, Buddy Stephens, continually pushes/hits his players — isn’t this assault/a lawsuit waiting to happen?

86 COMMENTS

  1. One of the guys in the film, DJ Law, signed with 3 teams on signing day and wanted to go to Utah, but his family wanted him to go to Miss. I vaguely remember that story.

    Sitake recruited him to Utah. Strange.
    He’s now a 0 star recruit signed to UAB. Quit a difference….makes you realize what a few bad decisions do to life path.

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      Because they can make money off it. If they do it smartly, the new USFL will be that league.

      Look at the long game here. A new league would allow the owners to call for a legitimate renegotiation of the CBA. And the players would want input so as to make that league less harmful to them both physically and financially.

      They could also market teams in potential locations for expansion. Though I would rather they implement a relegation format as it is, the capital outlays would be recouped if they were to support a minor league. And the experimentation with these markets would be borne by that league instead of just taking a plunge into one or more without true data.

      • It would be a good way to expand overseas, too, like the NBA.
        Players who are NQ can go play overseas.

        The bottom line is football talent has ZERO to do with intelligence and should not be linked to colleges. The guys who want to go to college have to qualify, sure, but those who don’t need a place to go.

        It’s a huge loss to society in many ways, but also to owners who are missing out on prime talent just because of grades. Very bizarre they haven’t done something about it.

        • I don’t see football expanding overseas. It’s cost prohibitive enough to block any real interest in a youth population who would aspire to play the game. And it gets tedious when you consider there’s only 15 minutes of action over a span of four hours.

          But yes, it is a loss to society. Take any trade and apply it to this situation. I knew kids who only went to school for shop. If it wasn’t there as their carrot, they wouldn’t have given school the gratuitous pshaw they did. They then went to a trade school supported by the state and learned the jobs they wanted to learn. Some found a second wind and developed into outstanding individuals doing precisely what they want. Most learned skills enough to become contributors to a shrinking labor pool. Some just washed out. But none would have contributed to society if the opportunity wasn’t there in the first place.

          The NFL isn’t stupid. It knows it needs a labor subset if it’s going to survive much longer. The college game has gone the direction of exploiting weak teams in order to enrich a large group of schools by asking their boosters to conflate some sort of athletic superiority with their actual missions. The few players who do make it to that highest level do not make for any weak teams to exploit. The talent is just too good. If they choose to follow the college model, they will need a buffer beyond practice teams in order to supply more bodies who will be exposed to more opportunities for injury. If they retain a more static “pro” style, they need to retrain and reform all the potential talent coming out of college.

          Where the NBA still fails is in the one-n-dun rule in terms of being drafted. By all means, have a rule that a kid needs to be a year or two removed from high school in order for them to participate in the league itself. But don’t make the talent go to college during that time. Draft and stash them.

          I think baseball figured out how to do it right. And they are developing talent at the college level without a devotion to full ships for all players.

          • MLB minor leagues is perfect.

            They can go to college if they want, but if they can’t make it into college, go to the minors. It’s not complex. The NFL just needs enough backlash and pressure to do it. Hopefully that film helps, because it really highlights the stupidity/societal loss of linking intelligence to football.

        • These ideas have already been tried. No new league has been able to challenge the NFL in years and won’t because of the start up costs. The USFL, the XFL have all tried and failed.

          They had NFL Europe for many years. It never caught on. They essentially had a development league in the UFL but that only last three years. There’s no fan demand for a minor league system.

          The quality of these minor leagues would be absolutely terrible. Unless the goal is to destroy the college football system.

          • There’s no real demand for MILB either. My guess is it runs at a loss or near break even.

            You take a loss running it to develop a talent pool you wouldn’t otherwise have. The problem with those past leagues is they tried to run them as profitable business.

            Do MLB teams make profit flying around Cuba and Japan looking for talent? No, they take a loss, but they see it as worthwhile for the handful of talents they find.

            With football it would be more lucrative from a talent perspective. There are so many 5-star talents that never play football because of grades.

            Another option would just be to make a “stash” roster where they can draft these types of players right out of HS at age 18 and develop them physically at their complex, then put them on the practice roster, then build them up for games. That would cost almost zero.

            We hear all this talk about a mind being a terrible thing to waste. So is a body/athlete.

          • The USFL failed because only Donald Trump knows how to fuck up football. But at least he won his lawsuit and got his $1.76/14 from the NFL, although, I suspect he filed a lawsuit against the rest of the USFL owners for most of that award also.

            The XFL was always a joke. The USFL had a great business plan and was succeeding before the loud-mouthed trust fund baby destroyed it. The XFL’s business plan was only to pose a threat… well… splash large enough for the NFL to pay for it to go away. And the previous anti-trust suit was the basis of that plan.

            With NFL cooperation, the original USFL plan would work well.

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            Yeah I can’t believe he brought up the XFL…wasn’t “he hate me” a player and Vince McMahon the commish? Lololol

            Yeah not surprised that failed.

          • And Rod Smart (aka He Hate Me) played four (?) seasons in the NFL… and in a Super Bowl.

            But that has more to do with his commitment to the game and finding anything he can to develop into what he thought he was. That just underscores the argument for a minor league. There are more players who could have done just as well given an opportunity to be even on that level, low as it was.

        • I feel like this would set a bad precedent. It would basically tell kids that there’s no need to get an education if you want to play football. I think we need to maintain the incentive to get some form of higher education. I feel like the general academic standards in colleges are already low enough. Let’s not start throwing a bunch of kids into the NFL with zero education then when they get hurt they have no way to earn a paycheck and become a burden on society.

          • That’s a decent moral argument. But I think inherent in any good plan that has to deal with an informed public would be nothing leaning toward a player mill. And the NFL would have a vested interest in player development off the field so the eventual call to the big league many will get doesn’t blow up in everyone’s face.

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            It would basically tell kids that there’s no need to get an education if you want to play football. I

            Well there isn’t a need to get an education if you want to play football.

            If someone gets hurt, they can go back to college any time and pursue something else. There are 80 year old people in college, you know, getting their undergrads. There’s on age limit, there’s no rush, and in fact the later someone goes to college the more mature they are about it and the more they get out of it.

            I feel like you’re pretending to care about some kid’s future just to take a moral high ground and keep the college game in-tact because you like it the way it is. But, it’s a huge waste to society.

          • My argument isn’t meant to take the high ground. It’s meant to point out that letting kids go to the NFL without an education is not good for society in general. First off, I don’t see how a bunch of millionaires with no education is good for society. The NFL’s money will make it back into the economy through a much better path if it goes through educated players rather than non-educated players. Second, if non-educated kids are winning the jobs over educated ones (maybe they are more talented or maybe they spent more time practicing because they didn’t have to study) then the next generation will see this and decide they will have a better chance to succeed if they quit school and only practice football.

          • I don’t see how a bunch of millionaires with no education is good for society

            Well, they are all over.
            http://elitedaily.com/news/business/100-top-entrepreneurs-succeeded-college-degree/

            There are many more than those, and they’re in all professions, and there are even billionaires, forget the millionaires.

            The NFL’s money will make it back into the economy through a much better path if it goes through educated players rather than non-educated players

            Possibly true (in theory), but educated people don’t know how to manage money well, so maybe not.

            Second, if non-educated kids are winning the jobs over educated ones (maybe they are more talented or maybe they spent more time practicing because they didn’t have to study) then the next generation will see this and decide they will have a better chance to succeed if they quit school and only practice football.

            So what?
            If someone has a learning disability yet are great at football, they probably do have a better chance to succeed without college. Not sure what your point is.

            Everyone is brainwashed that college is mandatory and great. It’s mostly a waste if you have talent. It’s only good for people without talent who need to learn a trade or skill, or someone who genuinely wants to spend four years becoming “well rounded”, etc and every other cliche we hear. That’s not best for all. We’re not robots. And some of these athletes have learning disabilities, which you are completely discounting.

          • Well, I’m not discounting learning abilities, I know several kids who have worked through learning disabilities. But I know it’s not easy. But I’m also not saying kids must get a 1000 or better on their SATs to get into the NFL. I’m just saying the players and society would be better off if they received some education beyond high school. We also can’t assume football is their only talent. School exposes kids to a lot of new things they never experienced. Many of them may find something they’re better at or enjoy more than football.

          • That should be up to them to decide, not you.
            But the fact that we have nothing in place for elite talent who happens to have a low IQ is a problem. These people could make millions instead of bagging groceries if they had an alternative to college. Eventually there will be pressure to create this and organizations will eventually seen the benefit (i.e. national talent pool instead of just college pool). I wouldn’t be surprised if the NFL got some heat for this at some point soon or they just figure it out on their own. I mean their teams could all be so much better with that huge talent influx.

  2. I’m 20 minutes into it. Here’s what I am seeing. A bunch of dumb as a post kids that have taken education for granted long before they’ve reached the collegiate level. DJ Law is a perfect example. He wants to get to the NFL. Good luck with that. If that dream fails (and it likely will), why wouldn’t you take advantage of a FREE FUCKING EDUCATION!?!? You’d still be able to provide for your son. If you show you aren’t willing to put the effort in to even go to class how in the fuck do you think your teammates or coaches would feel about you being reliable on the field? This movie should be called Low Character U. Way to break that stereotype of the south y’all. Where the fuck were the parents of these kids prior to college? It’s disgusting.

    At least the academic advisor gal is cute

    • The first thing I noticed was that the coach was abusive.

      I don’t see what intelligence has to do with football. It’s just like health insurance being attached to work. These things make no sense. If someone is excellent at football yet not good at school, society loses by having them do neither and bag groceries instead.

      We need a league for NQs/dumb players.

      That advisor woman is a saint. Watched all six episodes tonight. It’s really good. She’s great. Head coach blows.

      • they’re not good at school because they stopped fucking trying long before college. I want to play football, not go to class is the mindset. I admit I was the same way. I only went half the time my junior and senior year because I hated school. Yet, I still managed to graduate. If I managed to do it, anyone can. It is not hard. Not trying in school is pure laziness. There’s a reason these kids are so dumb. They stopped trying long before college and no one called them on it. But yet they were still coddled and pushed thru the system. And are being rewarded for being lazy. You’re right about one thing. Something is seriously wrong with a system that allows that to happen. It’s a societal problem that isn’t being addressed as seriously as it should. All because these kids can catch or throw a ball and might win a coach some games. If you don’t make it to the NFL but can’t fucking read how do you find a job? Support yourself or a family? Free education these dudes are just pissing away. The likelihood of them making a living in the NFL is very remote. And even if they do, there is career ending injuries. Concussions that can produce lingering effects long after a football career is over.

        An example of a guy who took it seriously and did it right? Richard Sherman.

        And yes that coach is an asshole

        • That’s a hardline approach like “pick yourself up by your bootstraps!” when many times there are underlying problems. I highly doubt all the kids are lazy.

          1. Learning disabilities are a real thing.
          2. Some have PTSD (e.g. Ollie had both parents killed at 5 and is messed up from it) or other mental illness. When you rant about where the parents are, the answer is “in a grave” or “dealing drugs” or “in jail” 90% of the time.
          3. Lack confidence. That DJ Law apparently did well on his writing exam, but he also clearly lacked confidence and had an attitude of “why try if it’s just going to confirm I’m dumb.” That’s not laziness but a mental issue.
          4. Cultural problems…growing up in environments that give education ZERO value.
          5. If you look at who did best on grade, it was John Franklin, who had a middle class family and the most support (just watch how many friends/family turned out for his signing day)
          6. Etc. Many shades of gray in between.

          You pretty much have no clue what you’re talking about here. It’s easy to call people lazy. It’s harder to understand their plight.

          “You’re lazy” is Donald Trump level analysis.

          • Hey angry,
            I watched the series recently too and I pretty much agree on all points above. Not sure why whiskey is getting on the kids for not having parents–that is not something they can really control. I saw some degree of laziness but I also saw a lot of the issues you mentioned: confidence issues, lacking basic skills and/or learning disabilities, mental and emotional trauma, low IQs, no family to motivate them. It’s definitely not a coincidence that John Franklin was the highest performer academically–he came from a good family with TONS of support. I bet his family was involved in his education from elementary school to present. It’s way too simplistic to just write them all off as lazy.

            From everything I saw with the series, I would have to agree–something should be created for kids to play ball without it being tied to academics. Remember people, getting a college degree is NOT mandatory. Not everyone is a good fit for college. BUT there are a lot of people who are great athletes but can’t play just because they aren’t a good fit for higher education. That just doesn’t make sense to me. There should be some kind of group created for these guys so they get a chance to play but aren’t forced into getting an education that isn’t a good fit.

            And for that matter I don’t even care if some of them are lazy, they seem totally driven when it comes to sports and if they aren’t interested in education, fine. Maybe one day they will be interested and will go on their own accord. I really just can’t muster up caring about other people’s choices, lol.

          • I am aware of learning disabilities, etc. However lets stick to the facts as they are aired on the show since that is what you referenced in the post. When i see a kid told to go get a notebook and comes back with a set of wireless bluetooth headphones, that isn’t a learning disability. When I see that a kid decides to sleep in and not go to class, that isn’t a learning disability.

            There are also programs in place for the underprivileged or those with disabilities. You’re right, I don’t know what it’s like growing up poor in a shithole neighborhood. But guess what? Neither do you. I will call laziness when I see it. If I was calling a kid with a learning disability lazy, well I’d just be another asshole.

            Are all of the kids shown on the show lazy? Absolutely not. But some of them from what I saw of the first episode put zero value in their education at all.

          • did you grow up having to drink powdered milk because your parents couldn’t afford the real thing? I did. But at the same time we didn’t live in a ghetto. And mom was a stay at home mom while dad worked. Guess that’s white privilege. I didn’t consider us poor. Just parents being responsible and taking care of the kids they brought into this world.

        • I only watched the trailer and won’t bother with the rest of it. “And yes that coach is an asshole,” and a very fat one. The sight of him trying to run along side the players is comical.

    • “Perfect example”

      Haha what? This guy started in and won a national championship game and is currently on an NFL roster. In what reality did he fail?

      • Jamarcus Russell was on an NFL roster too after being drafted number 1 in 2007. And he’s flat broke. A fool and his money are soon parted.

        Ryan Leaf?

  3. I thought NFL teams cut roster numbers years ago to save money and have trouble seeing them fund a developmental league. Particularly when college does it for them.

    Anybody have any idea how the NBA developmental league performs in actually developing players and then getting them to NBA rosters?

    Haven’t watched this, but surprised the guy is pushing/hitting players on camera. Seems like a huge liability for the school.

  4. The NFL will never have a pure D league. It is a money drain and they are all about making more cash. Nobody cares about crap football.

    • If you read above, I was talking about the profit motive. MILB. It looks like when MILB began it was highly unprofitable, not it’s profitable: http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2014/08/04/Franchises/Minor-league-teams.aspx

      But let’s forget the short-term profit for a minute: if the franchise has a developmental team or procedure, and they take a loss on that small portion of the business, is that okay if from it they reap huge rewards/profits once those players make the roster and become stars?

      And as the MILB article points out, [MLB] games are becoming unaffordable for whatever is left of the middle class. So, it’s a perfect time to start a developmental league. Fans can get out and enjoy a day outside watching games.

      But even if they don’t want to go that route, just create some lodging for NFL developmental players and house them. All the NQs and guys with odd paths who have massive talent. Stash them and develop them. It wouldn’t cost much. Then put them on the practice roster as needed. All that would require is the NFL commish to allow a developmental roster in addition to the practice roster. Solved.

      Everyone wins. NFL teams get a larger player pool of top talent (so many NQs are huge talents), society wins by that player being in the NFL instead of bagging groceries, etc.

      Businesses sometimes have to run at a loss to gain something. E.g. Amazon is like 20 years old and still running at a loss just to gain market share/brand loyalty. Many small business owners don’t pay themselves a salary (which is a loss) just to fund the business. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and take a loss on a segment of a business to make the other segments even more profitable.

      I see no sound argument for the current model of just letting massive talent fall by the wayside because they aren’t [intellectually] meant for college. None.

          • Your summation is a mirror of any good argument for public education funding re: teaching, trades, fine arts and social studies. You’re talking about sensible business with societal benefits.

            Your previous arguments had a much more free-marketeer vocabulary.

          • Haven’t been reading anything.

            I’m all about efficiency/little waste. Not just with econ, but even in my house I try to buy items that can do multiple things and in the most efficient way or the most cost effective way (and this included long-term cost…for example, ditched a microwave b/c links to cancer, so while it’s efficient in the short-term it isn’t in the long-term).

            Ditching massive talent over grades isn’t efficient for society or the businesses involved. Everyone is losing with this current model.

            Govt rarely (never, but I’ll be nice) is efficient, so I’m not for govt. Never will be unless it’s small and efficient with people who understand risk/reward of short/long-term issues.

            I’m all for ethical Capitalism and always have been, but there’s a huge benefit to that in terms of health/quality of life, etc that might look like Socialism. Profit motive and efficiency have to be in-tact. Anything that strays from those isn’t sensible and hurts society, though it might feel good emotionally for the short-term (e.g. “we’re all in this together” yada yada, yeah, until we realize we’re all in a shit-storm together and it really fucking stinks). We need profit and efficiency and ethics, and they can all coexist in an elegant way with some visionary thinking.

          • You almost lost me at Capitalism and Socialism. Ethical capitalism is socialism.

            And government does act efficiently when it’s allowed to do so. All the people in for-profit businesses are just as inefficient as anyone else when they are a collective. Some are better than others. But they are measured in profit alone. The inefficiencies in government occur in two ways. One is outright corruption. The other is business lobbying for and getting unnecessary legislation that benefits their excess profit motive. One is legal. The other is the same but illegal.

            I agree that smaller is better. Government can act more efficiently in the same way by listening to local communities, not lobbied interests. But those who would divide each and every community in order to have their God Damned Right to bleed said communities dry with national brand X will never let that happen.

            It turns out unregulated capitalism breeds feudalism. We’ve managed in our time to make America dumberer again.

            Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go look at my “managed” retirement account and pretend there aren’t a dozen or more people with their fingers in that pie.

          • Ethical capitalism is socialism

            No, it’s not at all. At least now how I’m defining it. Not sure of the technical definition of that term, but I think of it as a business that’s interested in making huge profit (most they can) without plundering society or infringing on others in the process. Socialism is abolition of private property and many other fucked up ideologies that completely ignore and/or try to repress basic human instincts, the most important of which is the profit incentive as motivation.

          • You almost lost me at those words because you capitalized them. That’s the free-marketeer speak I was talking about. They are separate constructs with very different meanings than the original definitions.

            What you are talking about is social capitalism as proposed by Gandhi. That is a form of socialism.

            People who are in it for profit alone do not stop at reasonable profits, let alone necessary ones. They don’t even stop at legal ones in many situations because the cost of doing something criminal saves them money. And that’s not a signal that government regulation is infringing on business, causing inefficiencies. That’s a signal that business is doing yet another illegal thing which will eventually push the government further away from its stated mission.

          • Most of the time people claim the government can’t do anything efficiently just out of adherence to a belief system more than anything else. Food stamps is a good example of the government being efficient. The private sector would kill for admin costs as low as that program does it.

          • I don’t know man, I worked as a contractor for govt and saw firsthand how huge a mess they are…total incompetence, which is why they had to outsource to the private sector.

            You clearly love big govt and talk about it all the time, so there’s no point in this discussion.

          • I like effective, functioning government programs and it’s equivalent in the private sector. You like viewing things in black and white.

      • A different animal. Football requires more players, which means more cost. They play very few games relative to baseball, which means you have to draw pretty large crowds to turn a profit.

        Caddyshack provides a sound argument:
        The World Needs Ditch Diggers Too – Caddyshack – YouTube
        YouTube › watch

        • The world needs ditch diggers, but they should be people who have no other skills, not elite talent.

          If you think about it in the reverse you see how stupid it is:

          Say Einstein had to play football at an average level before anyone would allow him study physics. You quickly see how ridiculous it is, and how the two are completely unrelated. Football has no relationship to education, and if someone is excellent at football and piss poor at learning, then they should be allowed to play football and pursue what they’re good at. In college? No. But somewhere. The fact is no such league exists for them. But it should.

          • Einstein’s a poor choice. He was smart enough to study and develop physics while holding down a mundane job.

            But we do live in a new age. A quality product would garner profit enough from TV alone, given the proposed cost of labor and a conservative business plan.

          • Way to miss the point.

            If he HAD to play football at a certain level in order to study physics society would lose.

            That’s it. No strawmen or other logical tangents needed.

          • Einstein was always jumping off-sides, relatively speaking. Good thing he had a back up plan.

            I just don’t believe there is a big market for minor league football. CFB is supported primarily by the emotional attachment of being an alum(except Oregon) or a states defacto pro team(Nebraska).
            The NFL is a marketing machine and has become the identity of their home cities.
            Any minor league players will always be seen as rejects. The CFL is the prime example.

      • Minor league baseball exists because there is a huge development gap between college and the pros. It takes years in the minors before making it to the show. Very few have skipped the minors to the big leagues. Football, guys can step in right away. Basketball is the same way. There isn’t a huge need for a developmental league because new guys come out of college ready to play every year. The NBA’s developmental league hasn’t really produced much talent or been a worthy alternative to college ball.

        Hockey is the same as baseball. Few guys can come out of juniors and play at the NHL level right away.

  5. I’m impressed with the Beavers w/o Borders program. There are snippets of the 2016 trip on youtube – I assume there is a longer version – like the movie of the trip they took to Macedonia in 2011 – the one during which Roberto broke the glass backboard and cut himself up – but I can’t seem to find anything – not even a pay for view. Any suggestions?

  6. The CFL should allow a couple teams from the US that would serve as our development league. I would think that would help with the interest level in the CFL, and give the NFL a cheap way to implement this sytem.

  7. Been there, done that with CFL. It failed. The more practical idea would be to use arena ball as the minor league. It has entertainment value without being an exact low end copy of the NFL. This would be much cheaper. There are already a few ex jc players in arena ball with close to nfl talent, that could not get into d1 colleges.

    • Eh, I’ve never watched a game of arena league, except for a few big plays or whatever you call that nonsense. It has more income with America Gladiator minus the tennis ball cannon then football. I mean how many players have gone from arena league to the NFL? Successfully? I know a few have gone the other way.

    • I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from hear. But but but……Viginas! At least the bias is getting attention.

  8. Trying to not get too excited for basketball. I’m a little concerned the team will start slow/take a step back from last season. I could see them making a late push if all the new pieces can come together, but not sure we’ll have a real competitive team. Season after next I will be expecting a good team.

    • This season will all hinge on how well people rehab. And the forwards are the main concern there. It’s mostly about Tres and Ben healing properly then getting out on the floor to get their game legs back before they can further develop.

      And we’ll see how well Jaquori adjusts. I suspect very well. It’s just a matter of how long his frosh slump lasts… and when it occurs.

      But they will also be young. So it’s not wrong to expect an up-and-down but competitive season. We have a lot of talent on this team now. It’s good enough that we could be facing questions of this or that player bolting to the NBA after their junior years. So yeah… I figure next year and the year after will be pretty fun to watch from our perspective.

  9. Some things bother me here.

    “betrayed by compromised standards of professionalism, promptness and diligence.”

    The last two are mutually exclusive unless you have a correct expectation for the time it takes to be diligent. It’s probably one of the most problematic issues in the legal system as a whole. Innocent people are accused and convicted all the time. In fact, it’s worse out in the real world. So it’s not surprising it happens in other parts of the real world. Are we angry because the culture of this country has seeped into the ivory tower?

    And this:

    [she alleged] that he had “coercively pressured her over a period of weeks to have sex with him” before they actually did.

    IIRC, that’s what we used to call a relationship. Did he do it all on Twitter?

    • OSU using the new Beaver logo on “old barn wood” as the background, same as for the ticket advertisements….

      I suppose it could be hip/modern depending on your perspective…

    • There was a period yesterday where building the dam retweeted the offers that were in the @beavrecruiting twitter feed, then the list of names was compiled into this story. The story pretty much wrote itself.

  10. I am all for a D-League for the NFL. Many have cited capturing the lost talent that doesn’t make it through academia. I think the NFL is actually okay with losing those players. I don’t think that it is the academics per se, but rather the NFL just wants to see if guys can jump through hoops and behave themselves. Many teams certainly take risks on players but that is only after they have proved that they are talented. I think the NFL is using the college system as a risk aversion method in terms of scouting/developing talent but also in finding players with discipline and resiliency.

    As an aside, why not have a D-League that pays decently well. Teams can bring players up at any time and can expand rosters by a limited amount with some limited amount of players designated for assignment. It would be good to avoid a situation where certain NFL teams have all he talent (i.e. 90’s niners with HOFers on the bench) but at the same time allow for a new level of fan intrigue. D-League plays in the spring/summer like USFL to keep that year round NFL interest.

    Finally, college could do away with their pro restrictions. That is, players that wash out of the NFL can return to college for full scholarship. Similarly, you could attend college briefly and then return to school. Limited or no extra benefits beyond scholarship+cost of attendance. It allows college to maintain their morality of education as a focus. Guys that wash out of the NFL D-league would be fun to watch and fun causes to root for. These would be guys who opted to return primarily for education as their is little financial incentive beyond education and no football future left for some of them. Probably too radical for all involved but a bit more idealistic of a system.

    • The NFL is okay with losing that talent because the chances those kids have to succeed is close to nil with the existing infrastructure. A minor league gives them structure at a time in their lives when they need it. That alone would change several trajectories for the better.

      But you’re correct. Initially there will be mostly college/pro tweeners populating these rosters. And misused talent (college QBs, Gwachum, etc.) will get a chance to learn different positions with game action instead of practice and some ST duty.

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