Clarett shut out of the draft by the Supreme Court

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 1:50 pm

Ahh the beauty of non-guaranteed contracts.

skidmark · Post by **skidmark** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 2:25 pm

My despite for Clarett comes from his poor decision making... don't give me this "surrounded by people that led him astray" crap... just look at the cycle here:

While already being under investigation by the NCAA for violations, he goes to the police and lies about $6,000+ worth of merchandise being stolen from a car he wasn't even supposed to be driving.

Get's caught being a jackass and his response is:
"I genuinely and sincerely apologize to my teammates and to The Ohio State University for any embarrassment this incident may have caused"

Then OSU finally steps up as a university should (rather than continue to pander to these guys as many have done) and says,
"No football for you"

Clarett's response is to not respond to the NCAA or the University in any way... then show up on ESPN's camera's for college gameday... just outside of the horseshoe before OSU's first home game:

"I should be back in a week or two..."

OSU is put off by his stunt and knows that it shows that he in no way has "learned his lesson" so they define the "undertermined" suspension to a full year.

Clarett threatens to sue OSU and NCAA.. when everyone gets through laughing, he goes after the NFL.

Sues the NFL on a long standing eligibility clause that is more than well established, and some bone-headed judge doesn't look at any facts or knowledge surrounding the NFL's right and cause to do this and she finds for Clarett.

NFL immediately appeals the decision, and gets it finally gets it overturned the week before the draft.

Clarett's lawyer appeals to the Supreme Court, letting everyone know that Clarett will "suffer substantial irreparable injury" if he is not allowed to play in the NFL this year instead of waiting 1 more until he is eligible.

Now I just rushed to put these notes out there mostly off the top of my head, so the order or accuracy of the material may be off. The point is there though: Clarett made mistakes, got caught, then made more. If he at any point in his stirring of crap had "owned up", I'm guessing the despite for him would be less.

As for Mike Williams being the real victim here... I'm not buying that either. What's he a "victim" of? He saw the chance to shorcut the system on Clarett's shirttails and it ended up not working for him. I'm sure that if he really wants to, USC would be more than happy to make the effort to help him get reinstated for another year of college ball. I have no spite towards Williams and think he is a tremendous talent, but he and those he consulted with before leaving knew there was still risk of the opportunity not panning out.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 3:40 pm

JUCO players rarely go directly from a JUCO program to the NFL.

If the teams don't draft some of these high school players, then it will be a short-lived trend. I do think football players need to increase size and strength out of high school more than baskeball players before they can play the pro sport. But teams will determine if it's worth using their draft picks or using up some of their cap room to develop these young players.

Yeah I'm not sure of the case law in this area. I can't recall the first underclassman who challenged the NFL, which used to require seniors, didn't they? Wasn't Herschel Walker involved?

This 3-year rule may have been the result of the NFL's failure to keep underclassmen out. It may be no more valid than its previous rule for all we know.

Clarett isn't demanding that the NFL pay him a big bonus or give him guaranteed money. If he's truly not ready, either physically or mentally, then it's the fault of the team that signs him. In other words, it'll take care of itself. Why the NFL has to get involved, it must have something to do with protecting the NCAA.

skidmark · Post by **skidmark** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 3:49 pm

I remember the last big uprising of this rule was back when the USFL came around... it didn't have any 3 year policy, and was attempting to grab players out of college before they were eligible for the NFL.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 3:54 pm

Exactly. I think Herschel Walker wanted out before he used up his eligibility and had an alternative with the USFL.

It would be kind of like if some hotshot programmer (and there were many who were just finishing up high school) wanted to go work for some tech company but the trade association that tech company belonged to wanted to force the kid to go to college for set amount of years.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 3:59 pm

I don't think most people are falling for the noble NFL argument. They want to preserve the quality of their product, and having kids play college ball for 3 years helps that a lot. As an NFL fan, I agree. Having a minimum age requirement is not discrimination. If it was, we better change the constitutional age requirements for holding public office.

The thing is, GMs can be idiotic sheep. All it takes is for one high school kid or college freshman to make it, a la Kevin Garnett, and suddenly the rush will begin. There's already enough "upside" nonsense in the draft as it is. So I hope the restriction is upheld.

skidmark · Post by **skidmark** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 5:27 pm

This brings up another interesting thought a friend and I were discussing the other day... in the history of football, can you think of any players that were good enough to attempt to jump from HS to the NFL? I mean coming out one year early is one thing, but to skip college all together and go straight in?

Hershel Walker?

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 5:31 pm

skidmark wrote:This brings up another interesting thought a friend and I were discussing the other day... in the history of football, can you think of any players that were good enough to attempt to jump from HS to the NFL? I mean coming out one year early is one thing, but to skip college all together and go straight in?

Hershel Walker?

How much college did Eric Swann play. I can't remeber.

XXXIV · Post by **XXXIV** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 5:32 pm

If anyone heard Gene Upshaw (HEAD OF THE PLAYERS UNION)today on ESPN radio you know none of this matters.

The NFL rule is in the collective bargaining agreement with the players union. This is why the courts let the rule stand.

Upshaw went on to say that the rule will BE STONGER in the next agreement.

So if your looking for underclassmen in the NFL anytime soon...Forget about it.

JeffBarnes · Post by **JeffBarnes** » Sun Apr 25, 2004 4:15 pm

So what does this guy Clarett do now?

Badgun · Post by **Badgun** » Sun Apr 25, 2004 6:25 pm

JeffBarnes wrote:So what does this guy Clarett do now?

Play in Canada or get a job at Circuit City. That's pretty much it. He could probably go back to Ohio State if they actually wanted him, but listening to the tone coming out of Columbus, they don't even want his sorry ass back.

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 4:42 pm

Badgun wrote:As for the other guys you mentioned. We don't know whether Kobe did anything wrong or not at this point and I'd say he's got more integrity in his little finger than Clarett will ever dream of having.

Excuse me?!? We know by his own admission that Kobe at the very least cheated on his wife. That's not wrong? I guess not by today's standards.

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 6:15 pm

matthewk wrote:
Badgun wrote:As for the other guys you mentioned. We don't know whether Kobe did anything wrong or not at this point and I'd say he's got more integrity in his little finger than Clarett will ever dream of having.
Excuse me?!? We know by his own admission that Kobe at the very least cheated on his wife. That's not wrong? I guess not by today's standards.

Excluding the rape which is obviously a heinous crime and should be punishable by being locked under the prison for my two cents if Kobe actually did it....

I would love to secretly be able to sneak in and pry into some of the private lives on this board. Seems like we have a lot of "moral" upstanding men on this board who lead righteous lives which always sends off alarm bells to me....

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 6:25 pm

reeche wrote: I would love to secretly be able to sneak in and pry into some of the private lives on this board.

Maybe you can get a job with Ashcroft.

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 6:41 pm

Leebo33 wrote:
reeche wrote: I would love to secretly be able to sneak in and pry into some of the private lives on this board.
Maybe you can get a job with Ashcroft.

LOL. I want a patriot act for morality so I can be czar and bring up all the good dirt on people when they tell me in so many words how moral they are. Put that one on the ballot this fall.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 7:23 pm

reeche wrote:
Leebo33 wrote:
reeche wrote: I would love to secretly be able to sneak in and pry into some of the private lives on this board.
Maybe you can get a job with Ashcroft.
LOL. I want a patriot act for morality so I can be czar and bring up all the good dirt on people when they tell me in so many words how moral they are. Put that one on the ballot this fall.

It's not moral grandstanding for calling a man out for screwing around on his wife. I've certainly got my share of sins but that ain't one of them.

To be honest with you, reeche, you'd probably be pretty bored. You would have watched me play a lot of ESPN Baseball and commit the sin of theft when I stole Jason Kendall from the Pirates

reeche · Post by **reeche** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 7:29 pm

Brando70 wrote:
reeche wrote:
Leebo33 wrote: Maybe you can get a job with Ashcroft.
LOL. I want a patriot act for morality so I can be czar and bring up all the good dirt on people when they tell me in so many words how moral they are. Put that one on the ballot this fall.
It's not moral grandstanding for calling a man out for screwing around on his wife. I've certainly got my share of sins but that ain't one of them.

To be honest with you, reeche, you'd probably be pretty bored. You would have watched me play a lot of ESPN Baseball and commit the sin of theft when I stole Jason Kendall from the Pirates

It's certainly not a sin to call out somebody for cheating. However, if you want to call out people solely for cheating and not take into account other things to balance the ledger so to speak, then you are going down a long list of "great men". Not to say that Kobe is one of those "great" men. I view things like that as personal issues between that person and his family. It doesn't effect me. I could care less who's cheating on his wife and who ain't but of course that's just my two cents. I never look at sports figures as heroes or villains for that matter. All I care about is whether they can dunk a ball, sink a putt, or hit a homerun.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 2:17 am

I would agree with you on the heroes/villains thing. I don't watch sports for human interest, I watch them to see my teams win.

I don't think the appearance of flaws or occasional immorality makes a great man a bad one. FDR, for instance, cheated on his wife, interred the Japanese against their will, tried to pack the Supreme Court, but I'd still consider him a great leader.