Two days removed from the College Football Playoff semi-finals, both Josh Rosen and Sam Darnold declared for the NFL draft. The two Pac-12 quarterbacks are actually the two youngest of the elite quarterbacks in the class of 2018. Darnold at 20 years and 11 months, and Rosen at 21 years and 2 months, make picking them at 1 and 2, a potentially “risky” option for NFL owners.
Sam Darnold can’t even legally have a drink at a bar. Rosen is still in the early phase of full on “adulthood”, basically just being allowed at the bar. What happens when these kids get paid millions of dollars to throw a pigskin to overpaid WR’s in cities no where near west side Los Angeles?
I guess we are going to find out sooner than I had thought. I personally thought before the season, both of these cats would declare, but watching each of them this year, I thought Rosen would definitely come out and Darnold would stay. Darnold looked atrocious in more games than I expected, and I thought he may benefit from another year in general.
Rosen looked pretty good for having a brutal team and offensive line attempting to block for him, but his exit was underwhelming as Darnold’s. Rosen was “held from playing by team doctors”, even though we all knew that Rosen was going to come out and not risk potential injury in the Cactus Bowl.
Rosen exited first today by tweeting this:
Thankful to be a Bruin pic.twitter.com/iph754UL2b
— Josh Rosen (@josh3rosen) January 3, 2018
Then, minutes later, Darnold used a different form of social media, Instagram, to say that he was leaving as well. This seemed odd to me and left me thinking that Darnold was going to go only if Rosen went. I have no idea why I think this, but it seems odd to do something so similar, so soon after Rosen posted his.
Who Goes #1?
Which lucky QB will go to Cleveland to die? It will be Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold is the perfect victim for the Browns to ruin. But honestly, can we see either of these two being enough for the Browns or Giants to rebuild around? I would rather take a risk on Lamar or Baker, rather than these two, but remember, PROTOTYPICAL IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER!!!!
Most successful quarterbacks in the NFL have more things that you can’t see, rather than the tangibles. It is so easy to see that Rosen and Darnold are great football players, but at some point, the talent level reaches a level where kids just don’t want to deal with more work. I don’t think either of these guys love football enough to want to change the Cleveland Browns, because they have been vocal, true or not, about not wanting to end up in Cleveland.
There is nothing wrong with thinking that, but when they draft you, you are falling into the pit of doom. The QB that pulls Cleveland out of this hole needs to be someone who is vocal about changing the identity of the Cleveland Browns. They need to love football so much that even they think that the Browns can be good once again.
There may never be another individual that comes on the planet thinking this, other than another QB in this class…
DRAFT BAKER MAYFIELD!!!
That is who SHOULD go #1, but we all know he won’t. It would be TOO bold. Not prototypical enough. That is where you find a playmaker, a star, and a franchise QB.