BACH
Superbowl, Homeboy!
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/don_banks/12/08/bush.leinart/index.html
Bush by a landslide
You know what I'm hearing within the NFL about the so-called debate as to whether Reggie Bush or Matt Leinart will go first in next April's draft? There is no debate, folks. It might just be another one of those media-created mirages that disappears the closer we get to next spring.
If Bush declares himself eligible for the draft as a junior -- as it appears he's preparing to do -- the dazzling Southern Cal running back will almost certainly be the most coveted player available, with a final evaluation that ranks him comfortably ahead of the Trojans fifth-year quarterback, Leinart.
Sorry to ruin everyone's fun, but the Bush versus Leinart argument doesn't seem to have ever gotten started among the ranks of the league's personnel evaluators -- even if conventional wisdom within the NFL has long held that potential franchise quarterbacks are always more valuable than prospects at any other position.
"Leinart's not necessarily No. 1 pick material, if he ever was,'' said one veteran personnel man, who did not wish to be named in exchange for speaking candidly about last year's Heisman Trophy winner (Leinart) and the heavy favorite to win this year's award (Bush) on Saturday.
"Somebody,, at some point a while back anointed Leinart the first pick in the draft before he really even got evaluated. Then when the guy doesn't turn out to be the No. 1 after evaluation, the 'experts' have to go back and defend why they had him No. 1 all along.
"But with that team [USC], if you watch it closely, the guy that stirs that drink is the tailback. The guy is clearly the factor. They don't do anything revolutionary on offense. They just have better players than anyone else. They're backed up on their goal line, but they give him the ball on a simple hand-off and he goes 70 yards. He's a special player.''
Said one NFL general manager of Bush, who has elicited comparisons to Gale Sayers: "In the draft, it always matters where you are with your team and what direction you're going, but Bush belongs [at No. 1] by talent. He's special. He's a real marquee player. There's real debate around the league about the quarterback. There's not a great consensus on him.''
This time last year, estimates one league personnel man, Leinart held a commanding edge over Bush in terms of projected NFL value. But Bush's eye-popping junior season has turned those numbers around.
"I'd say it was 80-20 in favor of the Leinart camp at the end of last year,'' said the veteran NFL personnel man. "But then people started watching these players closely, and it probably closed to 50-50 at some point early this season. Now it's going the other way, toward Bush.
"With Leinart, a lot of it is reputation. He's a great story the past couple of years. He's strapping. He's handsome. He's a lot of fun. And he's won a lot of football games, and you can't take that away from him. But in terms of total skills, he's not Carson Palmer. People kind of bought into the hype on him. He's a touch passer, and that's what sometimes worries me about him. He throws off his back foot quite a bit. I can see this being Joey Harrington all over again.''
A former NFL player and longtime league observer had a similar assessment, saying, "I don't see a big arm with Leinart. I haven't seen it. I've seen some good touch throws, but not that pass that he really zips in there. He's not extraordinarily mobile or extraordinarily athletic. I think he's a lot of hype. I just don't see it with him, going first overall. With Bush, with the big games he had at the end of the season, he just separated himself.''
No league personnel evaluator I talked to envisions Leinart slipping too far down the board, or even out of the top five. The Trojans teammates will be two of three players on hand in New York on Saturday for the Heisman presentation -- along with Texas quarterback Vince Young -- and Bush and Leinart also are up for the Maxwell Award and other honors that will be handed out Thursday night at the 2005 Home Depot College Football Awards at the Walt Disney World Resort.
Though it's not completely analogous to this year's Bush-Leinart decision, the last team to face such a similar quarterback versus running back debate near the top of the draft were the San Diego Chargers in 2001. The Chargers opted to trade the No. 1 overall pick -- and the rights to draft Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick -- to Atlanta, in exchange for a package that included the fifth selection, which they used to select TCU running back LaDainian Tomlinson.
With Tomlinson blossoming into perhaps the NFL's best running back in the past five seasons, the Chargers are obviously ecstatic with the results of that deal. But it's worth noting that Vick has been just as valuable, if not more so, for Atlanta, and that L.T. was merely considered the league's best player on a bad team until quarterback Drew Brees -- who San Diego took with the first pick of the second round in 2001 -- unexpectedly developed into a star player in his own right in 2004.
"Maybe A.J. (Smith, the Chargers general manager) is the guy to talk to about Bush's value versus Leinart's value,'' said one league personnel man. "They could have taken Vick, but they chose to take Tomlinson. That didn't work out too bad for either team. But it worked out a lot better now that Brees has come along. And don't forget, L.T. was on that team before Brees starting producing, but they didn't win until they got the quarterbacking.''
In the eyes of most personnel evaluators, quality quarterbacking is the one essential ingredient to winning. As special a player as Bush might be, his presence alone isn't likely to impact a losing team as much as a significant upgrade at quarterback would.
Smith, who was San Diego's assistant GM under then-general manager John Butler at the time of the Vick trade, concurs: "You can build a championship team at a lot of positions, but you're wasting your time without a quality quarterback. If you don't have a quarterback -- and they're not all going to be superstars, but you need a solid, game-management type of quarterback -- you're not going anywhere in this league.''
Smith said the Chargers, coming off a 1-15 season in 2000, determined fairly early on in the evaluation process that their roster was so depleted they needed to parlay their No. 1 pick into a package of selections, rather than take the one marquee player in Vick. The Chargers' history of not wanting to pay the exorbitant signing bonuses that come with being the No. 1 pick also likely played into the equation in favor of making the deal.
"It was heavily debated,'' Smith said. "You had the quarterback at No. 1, but remember, we had to do a little sweating it out because we didn't get Tomlinson until No. 5. We didn't know for certain that he'd be there.
"But we needed multiple players. We were looking for a package to take us away from the Vick situation. John's and my thinking at the Senior Bowl, coming from Buffalo as we did, was that L.T. was Thurman Thomas for us.''
Former Packers general manager Ron Wolf never made a better move than his 1992 trade with Atlanta for Brett Favre, which gave Green Bay its quarterback for the next 14 seasons and counting. Wolf, now retired and living in Annapolis, Md., was not willing to discuss the merits of Bush versus Leinart because he has not seen enough of either player to evaluate them.
But he is firmly in the camp of those who believe that if a quarterback has a chance to be special, you take him over anyone if the opportunity presents itself.
"My thinking always was and always will be, in order to win in the NFL you need a quarterback, amen,'' Wolf said. "Look at what has happened to some teams this year when they didn't have a quarterback. I don't what it would be like to go to work for 17 weeks without a chance to win. That doesn't mean you don't take the running back this year. That doesn't mean Leinart is worthy of being the No. 1 pick.
"But the two best running backs I ever saw in my years in the NFL were O.J. Simpson and Eric Dickerson, and I don't think either one of those guys ever had a Super Bowl ring on their finger. Earl Campbell dominated as well. But he never won it all. In this game, if you don't have a quarterback, it's tough to go anywhere. I don't care who you have around that running back.''
Another factor that potentially weighs in Leinart's favor? Palmer's success this season in Cincinnati. The Bengals' third-year quarterback preceded Leinart as USC's starter and won the Heisman in 2002. The thinking goes that if Palmer's transition to the NFL went so smoothly, Leinart has a great chance to enjoy the same kind of learning curve early in his pro career.
"The fact that he has played in that pro-style offense, and with what Palmer has done this year, that's going to give Leinart even a little more value,'' one NFC personnel man said. "I think if he would have come out last year, he would have been strongly considered at No. 1, maybe along with Alex Smith. This year, I'd be shocked if he lasted past the top five, but I don't know if he can get to No. 1.''
Ex-Vikings Pro Bowl running back Robert Smith, himself a former first-round pick out of Ohio State in 1993, now serves as a college football analyst for ESPN. He has watched a ton of Bush and Leinart this season, and in Bush he sees a player with rare gifts, deserving of the building consensus that he has clear-cut No. 1 value.
"I don't think there's any question about it,'' Smith said. "He's a once in a decade, once in 15 years talent. And he's a special teams guy, a return guy, if you chose to use him there as well. I can't imagine a team picking early on that wouldn't take him. When you think about the teams that have a shot at the No. 1 pick, I don't see anybody that wouldn't take a running back like him if they had the chance. But I can think of some that wouldn't take a quarterback.''
Team need will always play a huge role in a club's evaluation process, and therefore could skewer the Bush-Leinart debate, one NFL general manager said.
"Somebody could rate Leinart over Bush because they have a hole at quarterback but not at running back,'' one club's general manager said. "But I think it's accurate to say that Bush has emerged as the consensus top-rated player if he comes out. There are no red flags with him. They say he's a great kid, a great teammate, has the toughness and all the things you could ask for at that position.''
Smith said Bush also has one key, but often-overlooked skill that will allow him to quickly step into an impact role in the NFL. He has already mastered the art of blitz pickup.
"The advantage he has over most college running backs making the transition to the NFL is that he has already seen a lot of the complicated blitz packages, because most defenses that played USC this year were set up to stop Matt Leinart,'' Smith said. "People outside the league don't realize it, but that's the No. 1 thing that will keep a guy off the field, if he can't help protect the quarterback and learn the protections.
"Bush has already proven he can stick his nose up there when a 260-pound guy comes at him. Running backs all can run the ball, but it's the blitz pick-up that matters so much. Especially early on in your career.''
We're still more than four months away from the NFL Draft, but the results couldn't be any clearer when it comes to Bush vs. Leinart. If Bush is ready to give the NFL a try, the NFL is ready to call his name first.
Bush by a landslide
You know what I'm hearing within the NFL about the so-called debate as to whether Reggie Bush or Matt Leinart will go first in next April's draft? There is no debate, folks. It might just be another one of those media-created mirages that disappears the closer we get to next spring.
If Bush declares himself eligible for the draft as a junior -- as it appears he's preparing to do -- the dazzling Southern Cal running back will almost certainly be the most coveted player available, with a final evaluation that ranks him comfortably ahead of the Trojans fifth-year quarterback, Leinart.
Sorry to ruin everyone's fun, but the Bush versus Leinart argument doesn't seem to have ever gotten started among the ranks of the league's personnel evaluators -- even if conventional wisdom within the NFL has long held that potential franchise quarterbacks are always more valuable than prospects at any other position.
"Leinart's not necessarily No. 1 pick material, if he ever was,'' said one veteran personnel man, who did not wish to be named in exchange for speaking candidly about last year's Heisman Trophy winner (Leinart) and the heavy favorite to win this year's award (Bush) on Saturday.
"Somebody,, at some point a while back anointed Leinart the first pick in the draft before he really even got evaluated. Then when the guy doesn't turn out to be the No. 1 after evaluation, the 'experts' have to go back and defend why they had him No. 1 all along.
"But with that team [USC], if you watch it closely, the guy that stirs that drink is the tailback. The guy is clearly the factor. They don't do anything revolutionary on offense. They just have better players than anyone else. They're backed up on their goal line, but they give him the ball on a simple hand-off and he goes 70 yards. He's a special player.''
Said one NFL general manager of Bush, who has elicited comparisons to Gale Sayers: "In the draft, it always matters where you are with your team and what direction you're going, but Bush belongs [at No. 1] by talent. He's special. He's a real marquee player. There's real debate around the league about the quarterback. There's not a great consensus on him.''
This time last year, estimates one league personnel man, Leinart held a commanding edge over Bush in terms of projected NFL value. But Bush's eye-popping junior season has turned those numbers around.
"I'd say it was 80-20 in favor of the Leinart camp at the end of last year,'' said the veteran NFL personnel man. "But then people started watching these players closely, and it probably closed to 50-50 at some point early this season. Now it's going the other way, toward Bush.
"With Leinart, a lot of it is reputation. He's a great story the past couple of years. He's strapping. He's handsome. He's a lot of fun. And he's won a lot of football games, and you can't take that away from him. But in terms of total skills, he's not Carson Palmer. People kind of bought into the hype on him. He's a touch passer, and that's what sometimes worries me about him. He throws off his back foot quite a bit. I can see this being Joey Harrington all over again.''
A former NFL player and longtime league observer had a similar assessment, saying, "I don't see a big arm with Leinart. I haven't seen it. I've seen some good touch throws, but not that pass that he really zips in there. He's not extraordinarily mobile or extraordinarily athletic. I think he's a lot of hype. I just don't see it with him, going first overall. With Bush, with the big games he had at the end of the season, he just separated himself.''
No league personnel evaluator I talked to envisions Leinart slipping too far down the board, or even out of the top five. The Trojans teammates will be two of three players on hand in New York on Saturday for the Heisman presentation -- along with Texas quarterback Vince Young -- and Bush and Leinart also are up for the Maxwell Award and other honors that will be handed out Thursday night at the 2005 Home Depot College Football Awards at the Walt Disney World Resort.
Though it's not completely analogous to this year's Bush-Leinart decision, the last team to face such a similar quarterback versus running back debate near the top of the draft were the San Diego Chargers in 2001. The Chargers opted to trade the No. 1 overall pick -- and the rights to draft Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick -- to Atlanta, in exchange for a package that included the fifth selection, which they used to select TCU running back LaDainian Tomlinson.
With Tomlinson blossoming into perhaps the NFL's best running back in the past five seasons, the Chargers are obviously ecstatic with the results of that deal. But it's worth noting that Vick has been just as valuable, if not more so, for Atlanta, and that L.T. was merely considered the league's best player on a bad team until quarterback Drew Brees -- who San Diego took with the first pick of the second round in 2001 -- unexpectedly developed into a star player in his own right in 2004.
"Maybe A.J. (Smith, the Chargers general manager) is the guy to talk to about Bush's value versus Leinart's value,'' said one league personnel man. "They could have taken Vick, but they chose to take Tomlinson. That didn't work out too bad for either team. But it worked out a lot better now that Brees has come along. And don't forget, L.T. was on that team before Brees starting producing, but they didn't win until they got the quarterbacking.''
In the eyes of most personnel evaluators, quality quarterbacking is the one essential ingredient to winning. As special a player as Bush might be, his presence alone isn't likely to impact a losing team as much as a significant upgrade at quarterback would.
Smith, who was San Diego's assistant GM under then-general manager John Butler at the time of the Vick trade, concurs: "You can build a championship team at a lot of positions, but you're wasting your time without a quality quarterback. If you don't have a quarterback -- and they're not all going to be superstars, but you need a solid, game-management type of quarterback -- you're not going anywhere in this league.''
Smith said the Chargers, coming off a 1-15 season in 2000, determined fairly early on in the evaluation process that their roster was so depleted they needed to parlay their No. 1 pick into a package of selections, rather than take the one marquee player in Vick. The Chargers' history of not wanting to pay the exorbitant signing bonuses that come with being the No. 1 pick also likely played into the equation in favor of making the deal.
"It was heavily debated,'' Smith said. "You had the quarterback at No. 1, but remember, we had to do a little sweating it out because we didn't get Tomlinson until No. 5. We didn't know for certain that he'd be there.
"But we needed multiple players. We were looking for a package to take us away from the Vick situation. John's and my thinking at the Senior Bowl, coming from Buffalo as we did, was that L.T. was Thurman Thomas for us.''
Former Packers general manager Ron Wolf never made a better move than his 1992 trade with Atlanta for Brett Favre, which gave Green Bay its quarterback for the next 14 seasons and counting. Wolf, now retired and living in Annapolis, Md., was not willing to discuss the merits of Bush versus Leinart because he has not seen enough of either player to evaluate them.
But he is firmly in the camp of those who believe that if a quarterback has a chance to be special, you take him over anyone if the opportunity presents itself.
"My thinking always was and always will be, in order to win in the NFL you need a quarterback, amen,'' Wolf said. "Look at what has happened to some teams this year when they didn't have a quarterback. I don't what it would be like to go to work for 17 weeks without a chance to win. That doesn't mean you don't take the running back this year. That doesn't mean Leinart is worthy of being the No. 1 pick.
"But the two best running backs I ever saw in my years in the NFL were O.J. Simpson and Eric Dickerson, and I don't think either one of those guys ever had a Super Bowl ring on their finger. Earl Campbell dominated as well. But he never won it all. In this game, if you don't have a quarterback, it's tough to go anywhere. I don't care who you have around that running back.''
Another factor that potentially weighs in Leinart's favor? Palmer's success this season in Cincinnati. The Bengals' third-year quarterback preceded Leinart as USC's starter and won the Heisman in 2002. The thinking goes that if Palmer's transition to the NFL went so smoothly, Leinart has a great chance to enjoy the same kind of learning curve early in his pro career.
"The fact that he has played in that pro-style offense, and with what Palmer has done this year, that's going to give Leinart even a little more value,'' one NFC personnel man said. "I think if he would have come out last year, he would have been strongly considered at No. 1, maybe along with Alex Smith. This year, I'd be shocked if he lasted past the top five, but I don't know if he can get to No. 1.''
Ex-Vikings Pro Bowl running back Robert Smith, himself a former first-round pick out of Ohio State in 1993, now serves as a college football analyst for ESPN. He has watched a ton of Bush and Leinart this season, and in Bush he sees a player with rare gifts, deserving of the building consensus that he has clear-cut No. 1 value.
"I don't think there's any question about it,'' Smith said. "He's a once in a decade, once in 15 years talent. And he's a special teams guy, a return guy, if you chose to use him there as well. I can't imagine a team picking early on that wouldn't take him. When you think about the teams that have a shot at the No. 1 pick, I don't see anybody that wouldn't take a running back like him if they had the chance. But I can think of some that wouldn't take a quarterback.''
Team need will always play a huge role in a club's evaluation process, and therefore could skewer the Bush-Leinart debate, one NFL general manager said.
"Somebody could rate Leinart over Bush because they have a hole at quarterback but not at running back,'' one club's general manager said. "But I think it's accurate to say that Bush has emerged as the consensus top-rated player if he comes out. There are no red flags with him. They say he's a great kid, a great teammate, has the toughness and all the things you could ask for at that position.''
Smith said Bush also has one key, but often-overlooked skill that will allow him to quickly step into an impact role in the NFL. He has already mastered the art of blitz pickup.
"The advantage he has over most college running backs making the transition to the NFL is that he has already seen a lot of the complicated blitz packages, because most defenses that played USC this year were set up to stop Matt Leinart,'' Smith said. "People outside the league don't realize it, but that's the No. 1 thing that will keep a guy off the field, if he can't help protect the quarterback and learn the protections.
"Bush has already proven he can stick his nose up there when a 260-pound guy comes at him. Running backs all can run the ball, but it's the blitz pick-up that matters so much. Especially early on in your career.''
We're still more than four months away from the NFL Draft, but the results couldn't be any clearer when it comes to Bush vs. Leinart. If Bush is ready to give the NFL a try, the NFL is ready to call his name first.
