
The Heisman Trophy winner will sit out the first half of Saturday's game against Clemson.
The lead-up to the NFL draft is a meat market where prospects are measured, poked, prodded and put through drills to see how their bodies will stack up in the cutthroat NFL. College tapes are pored over, and scouts also scrutinize players for what they do off the field. Every team is different, but as a rule, talent usually trumps character issues when it comes to evaluating players and making draft decisions. JaMarcus Russell faced maturity questions coming out of LSU, but was the No. 1 pick in the 2007 draft. Ryan Leaf went second overall in 1998 despite a party boy reputation in college. Randy Moss was dinged for his catalog of red flags in school and dropped to the No. 21 pick in 1998, but still was drafted in the first round. Russell and Leaf were colossal busts, and Moss is a future Hall of Famer. The NFL draft is a crapshoot and no amount of scouting and background checks can ensure a team gets it right or uncovers future transgressions by the player. But the 2015 NFL draft class is likely to face a whole new level of scrutiny, as the league deals with the fallout from the actions of Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy. The old way of looking at prospects is dead.
The most scrutinized player of the next NFL draft is sure to be Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston, who finds himself once again in the news for the wrong reasons. On Wednesday, FSU suspended the 2013 Heisman Trophy winner for the first half of Saturday's game against No. 22 ranked Clemson for standing on the table at the school's student union and screaming an obscene phrase of a sexual nature, aping an Internet video popular on college campuses.
'It was not a good decision,' said Jimbo Fisher, coach of top-ranked FSU, during a teleconference Wednesday. 'You can't make certain statements that are derogatory or inflammatory to any person, race or gender. You have to understand that. You have to be very intelligent about what you say, (because) it matters.'
It was an immature action by Winston, who should realize by now that his every move is monitored and scrutinized, but this was just the latest black mark on Winston's record. He faced sexual assault allegations last year, but the state prosecutor declined to press charges against Winston. Other transgressions include shooting a pellet gun and stealing crab legs while at FSU. Kids do a lot of stupid stuff when they are 20 years old, but most of these kids are not being handed $20 million and being asked to rescue, and be the face of an NFL franchise. Winston is an otherworldly talent, but teams are going to question whether his issues are immaturity, cluelessness or something else is going on.
Winston was the top prospect on the Big Board of ESPN's Mel Kiper entering the season (he's since dropped to third). The No. 1 pick in the 2014 draft, Jadeveon Clowney, signed a four-year, $22.3 million contract with the Houston Texans. The money fell quickly after the top pick with four year deals for pick No. 7 ($14.6 million), No. 12 ($10.4 million), No. 22 ($8.3 million) and No. 32 ($6.8 million). Quarterbacks picked first overall are expected to be franchise saviors and the team's cornerstone for the next decade. Are team's ready to roll the dice with Winston at the top of the 2015 draft? It only takes one team enamored with a player to pull the trigger, but Winston is potentially costing himself millions with his behavior off the field.
The NFL is a business at the end of the day; a $10 billion a year business that is dwarfed in size by other big companies in Corporate America, but receives out-sized attention and media coverage because of the sport's popularity and ubiquity on TV. The NFL, Vikings and Ravens badly mishandled the cases of Rice and Peterson. The parties in charge are reacting instead of being proactive. But the one thing that always gets the NFL's attention is if the business might be impacted. Anheuser-Busch, who spends $200 million annually on the NFL and its broadcasts, took the league to task in a statement this week: 'We are not yet satisfied with the league's handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code.' Other league sponsors, including Pepsico and Campbell Soup , also reached out to the NFL with concerns. Hotel chain Radisson pulled its Vikings' sponsorship.
Winston knows the NFL is a business better than most. He returned to Florida State this year with a $10 million disability and loss of value insurance policy. FSU is paying part of the premium and the policy pays out if he is permanently disabled. Winston also collects on the policy if he falls from near of the top of the draft and ends up with a smaller rookie playing contract. Winston should check the fine print to see if a draft day drop from immaturity is covered. Follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Read all of my Forbes stories here.
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