My take
This next post is about the NFL draft. There are two regular readers of this blog who have already heard me talk up one side and down the other on this subject, leaving only two other regular readers interested in it. All of my other regular readers will soon strike "regular" from the description of their reading.
In a word: disappointment. Like everyone and their dog says, it's nothing against Mario Williams. I'm sure he's great. And it's not even like I think Reggie Bush really is bound to be the next Great. It comes down to this:
The Texans are a new team, and don't have the slack to make the kind of mistake to pass on someone as hyped as Reggie Bush. If Bush ends up being a bust, then the word is that Bush was a disappointment; that the player was a disappointment. But the organization is forgiven for taking a player that everyone in the world was thrilled about, and gets branded as a bad luck team at worst: the wrong team in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But if Mario Williams is a bust, or if Williams is anything less than one of the best and Bush is a 1500-yard back, then it's the organization that's a disappointment. The Texans won't just be a hard-luck team, but a stupid team, one that passed up on one of the biggest Sure Things of the last 20 drafts. The Texans front office can try and claim that they don't care about what others think, that they did the best thing for the organization, but from a marketing perspective, it matters a LOT. A team this young, and a team from the city of Houston can't afford to be a pathetic team.
Obviously, I hope that I'm wrong. I hope that Williams is consistently a 14-sacks-a-season player, and that Bush never clears 1000. But that's pretty unlikely, and it makes my heart pretty heavy to think of my consolation team, the team that's supposed to make up for losing my childhood team, to be the laughing stock of the NFL.
There's a lot of pressure on Mario Williams' shoulders. I've never expected so much from a player before.
2 comments:
This makes sense. Basically you want Reggie Bush to be the next Kijana Carter...and Mario Williams to be the next Reggie White. And I'm right there with you. Reggie White's sense of entitlement really is irking me. Watch him hold out all summer long now, just wait...
Sort of...I definitely want Mario to be the next Reggie White, but I'd rather just see Bush be a bust, instead of having any injuries. Though I have to admit that I'm sort of swayed by him going to the Saints. It would be nice to see them have a big star that they can make lots of money off of.
The main point is just more that I think that there's a marketing point that's being lost on the Texan's brass, that Mario's average and Bush is great, that's going to leave a nasty mark on the entire franchise for years to come. They'll be the joke team for a long time, and I think that, as a four-year-old team, they need to be a little more careful.
Obviously, I hope anyone that the Texans draft ends up being a star. But in this case, it has more to do with the player and the success of the team, and the face of the entire franchise. It's more for the status of the team that I hope Mario is successful.
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