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LSU churns out NFL players, but they aren't living up to expectations
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/04/17/1152063/lsu-churns-out-nfl-players-but.html
DAVID EULITT DAVID EULITT | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Defensive lineman Glenn Dorsey hasn’t exactly made his presence felt in the NFL since Kansas City drafted him with the No. 5 overall selection in the 2008 draft.
It was a Saturday afternoon in April at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. NFL draft day 2009. The Chiefs had the No. 3 overall pick. So many options. A can’t-miss linebacker named Aaron Curry? A franchise offensive tackle, such as Eugene Monroe?
Late in the afternoon, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell approached the lectern and made the announcement.
“With the third pick in the 2009 NFL draft,” Goodell said, “the Kansas City Chiefs select Tyson Jackson, defensive end from LSU.”
The crowd gasped. Some booed. Jackson’s name was a surprise, but other things were not. He filled a need on defense, and the college program that produced him was one the Chiefs seemed uniquely comfortable with. For three years in a row, the Chiefs made an LSU player their top draft pick.
Before Jackson, there was defensive lineman Glenn Dorsey at No. 5 overall in 2008. A year earlier, the Chiefs drafted wide receiver Dwayne Bowe at No. 23 overall.
Those players have something else in common: None has lived up to expectations or their draft slots. That trend is known now to the Chiefs’ organization, but perhaps it should’ve seen it coming earlier.
LSU has produced 35 NFL draft picks since 2003, but there are more stories of failure than success. Of those 35 players, nine of whom were first-round picks, only one has been selected for a Pro Bowl: Indianapolis running back Joseph Addai’s appearance as a reserve in 2007. The handful of successes are overshadowed by players such as Oakland’s JaMarcus Russell and Dorsey — who have shown little evidence that, at least in their current situations, they’ll live up to their draft-day hype.
“I don’t think anybody has seen or heard from Glenn Dorsey,” said former NFL coach Jon Gruden, who drafted former LSU receiver Michael Clayton to the Buccaneers in 2004.
LSU is known as one of the last decade’s most successful college programs, winning national championships in 2003 and 2007 and helping elevate hungry and talented players into college superstars. But according to some outside the LSU bubble, NFL teams have learned the hard way that, at least lately, a draft pick who played for the Tigers isn’t a sure thing.
“Word has been out there that the guys aren’t working real hard,” said Chris Landry, a former NFL scout who now works as a consultant for nearly a dozen teams. “It’s been talked among scouting circles for a while. It’s more: Buyer beware.
“It gives (LSU) a bad image. It gives it an attitude of just: ‘What the hell is going on over there?’ ”
• • •
The signs were there. That’s what LSU insiders and observers said. Dorsey paid less attention to conditioning after his junior season. Bowe’s hands weren’t improving. Russell’s work habits were questionable from the start.
“JaMarcus was a bust waiting to happen,” said Landry, who lives in Louisiana. “A lot of people have misevaluated some of these LSU players.”
Landry said the problems started when those players emerged as NFL prospects, and their work habits slipped. He said LSU’s coaches failed to push those players, and as a result, they adopted poor approaches as acceptable.
“The program has slipped from a discipline and work-ethic standpoint,” Landry said. “They’re not nearly as demanding on them.”
LSU coach Les Miles did not respond to an interview request made to the school’s sports information department. It was Miles who took over after Nick Saban moved on in 2004, and on the surface, little seemed to change. The Tigers kept recruiting top athletes, kept winning big games and kept producing NFL prospects.
But as other dominant college teams became factories for NFL superstars — Miami, Southern California and Texas produced a combined 97 draft picks and 19 Pro Bowlers since 2003 — LSU was churning out players who looked the part, passed the combine tests and had futures that looked bright.
But something was different. Of LSU’s 21 players drafted in the first four rounds since ’03, only 12 have started the majority of their games. There are good players to have come out of LSU in the last decade. But none has yet become great.
“It’s disappointing,” one LSU insider said. “Somebody should have made a handful of Pro Bowls right now, and it hasn’t happened.”
The years passed. Again and again, NFL teams kept evaluating LSU players and seeing the one who might break the trend. They put in the time. Did the scouting. Made their grades. Marcus Spears was a can’t-miss. So was LaRon Landry. Dorsey, too. Bowe, Russell, Dorsey and Spears are among those who’ve been criticized for their conditioning habits. Others have been chided for work-ethic concerns. Their talent has spent years getting cold in the shadow of those worries.
“Everybody thought they were good players,” said NFL.com analyst Gil Brandt, a former Cowboys personnel director. “It doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t make sense.”
• • •
Larry Dauterive approached the woman last year. He’d seen her around. Dauterive is the football coach at East St. John High School, 53 miles southwest of Baton Rouge. Tyson Jackson’s mother worked in the school’s cafeteria.
Dauterive saw her shortly before last year’s draft. He smiled and passed along a message.
“You’re not going to have to wipe these tables off anymore,” Dauterive remembered saying.
Of Louisiana’s 4.4 million residents, 19.4 percent live in poverty. That’s the second-highest percentage in the country. Some of those residents are children. Some play football. Coaches know how to motivate Louisiana’s youngsters.
“Hey, you’ve got a chance” to reach the NFL, Dauterive said. “We’ve got some there. You can get there.
“That’s the carrot we dangle in front of them.”
The NFL means an escape. It means riches. It means that if you get there, your mama can stop wiping off tables in a school’s lunchroom. And Dauterive is right: Louisiana does have players there. Per capita, the state has more players in the NFL than any other. The best Louisiana players go to LSU. Its coaches recruit with promises, the same as any other. Championships. Big games. A chance at the NFL and all the things that means.
“The Tigers have put a fence around this state,” Dauterive said.
Many players thrive at LSU. They become All-Americans. They win awards. They are invited to the NFL combine, then for on-site interviews, then to Radio City Music Hall. Some make it. They reach that carrot; reach the goal that motivated them throughout their lives. Poverty is forever behind them.
Then what? Things change. Without the carrot, some are no longer motivated — not in the same way, at least.
John Murray is a sports psychologist based in South Florida. He sees it often: being poor drives a man to do great things; when he is no longer poor, he no longer craves greatness in that deep, visceral way.
“A lot of people do fall victim to that: They think they’ve achieved everything,” Murray said. “You lose your entire purpose when you don’t have something to strive for.”
Glenn Dorsey’s father cleaned the inside of oil drums and came home caked with grime. Dorsey’s contract with the Chiefs guaranteed him $23 million. Jackson’s mother worked in that school cafeteria. Now her son’s deal is worth a guaranteed $31 million.
They’re not the only ones.
“They are getting some fat contracts,” Dauterive said. “Maybe they are taking their foot off the pedal.”
• • •
Yes, there are success stories. Cincinnati’s Andrew Whitworth is a reliable offensive lineman. Arizona receiver Early Doucet showed potential at the end of last season. Washington safety LaRon Landry has started 47 games in three seasons. The Chiefs remain hopeful that their LSU draft picks can right their wrongs.
There is reason for optimism, and the Chiefs hope Bowe, Dorsey and Jackson can still reach a kind of greatness that once seemed a foregone conclusion. Dorsey took a step forward last year, after coaches harped on conditioning in an effort to undo years of bad habits.
Jackson showed promise in his rookie season, and the Chiefs hope they got in Jackson’s ear early enough that he won’t repeat his predecessors’ mistakes.He’s also playing for an organization that emphasizes conditioning and work ethic. General manager Scott Pioli and coach Todd Haley inherited Bowe and Dorsey, but Jackson was their pick.
For now, all that’s left to do is wait. The Chiefs would not participate in this story, a team spokesman telling The Star that the team’s five LSU players — Bowe, Travis Daniels, Dorsey, Jackson and Rudy Niswanger — each had reasons they preferred to avoid the subject.
For its part, the team is aware of the risks that seem to be involved in drafting an LSU player. It’s unlikely that the Chiefs will turn to LSU for their top pick a fourth consecutive year. The school doesn’t have a likely top-10 prospect, but there will be options later.
The Tigers had a dozen players invited to the scouting combine, the most of any college program. Numbers never were the problem. And for kicks, one draft Web site predicted the Chiefs will select LSU wide receiver Brandon LaFell in the second round.
Maybe if the Chiefs continue their tendency of drafting LSU players, perhaps it will be LaFell who overcomes the factors that have held back prospects from the school. Maybe he will be the one scouts have been waiting for.
Then again, some have seen all the evidence they need; they wouldn’t be willing to take the risk.
“It is a concern,” said Chris Landry, the former scout. “You have to acknowledge it, and you have to step away.”
Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/04/17/1152063/lsu-churns-out-nfl-players-but.html#ixzz0lSCVdmCb
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/04/17/1152063/lsu-churns-out-nfl-players-but.html
DAVID EULITT DAVID EULITT | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Defensive lineman Glenn Dorsey hasn’t exactly made his presence felt in the NFL since Kansas City drafted him with the No. 5 overall selection in the 2008 draft.
It was a Saturday afternoon in April at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. NFL draft day 2009. The Chiefs had the No. 3 overall pick. So many options. A can’t-miss linebacker named Aaron Curry? A franchise offensive tackle, such as Eugene Monroe?
Late in the afternoon, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell approached the lectern and made the announcement.
“With the third pick in the 2009 NFL draft,” Goodell said, “the Kansas City Chiefs select Tyson Jackson, defensive end from LSU.”
The crowd gasped. Some booed. Jackson’s name was a surprise, but other things were not. He filled a need on defense, and the college program that produced him was one the Chiefs seemed uniquely comfortable with. For three years in a row, the Chiefs made an LSU player their top draft pick.
Before Jackson, there was defensive lineman Glenn Dorsey at No. 5 overall in 2008. A year earlier, the Chiefs drafted wide receiver Dwayne Bowe at No. 23 overall.
Those players have something else in common: None has lived up to expectations or their draft slots. That trend is known now to the Chiefs’ organization, but perhaps it should’ve seen it coming earlier.
LSU has produced 35 NFL draft picks since 2003, but there are more stories of failure than success. Of those 35 players, nine of whom were first-round picks, only one has been selected for a Pro Bowl: Indianapolis running back Joseph Addai’s appearance as a reserve in 2007. The handful of successes are overshadowed by players such as Oakland’s JaMarcus Russell and Dorsey — who have shown little evidence that, at least in their current situations, they’ll live up to their draft-day hype.
“I don’t think anybody has seen or heard from Glenn Dorsey,” said former NFL coach Jon Gruden, who drafted former LSU receiver Michael Clayton to the Buccaneers in 2004.
LSU is known as one of the last decade’s most successful college programs, winning national championships in 2003 and 2007 and helping elevate hungry and talented players into college superstars. But according to some outside the LSU bubble, NFL teams have learned the hard way that, at least lately, a draft pick who played for the Tigers isn’t a sure thing.
“Word has been out there that the guys aren’t working real hard,” said Chris Landry, a former NFL scout who now works as a consultant for nearly a dozen teams. “It’s been talked among scouting circles for a while. It’s more: Buyer beware.
“It gives (LSU) a bad image. It gives it an attitude of just: ‘What the hell is going on over there?’ ”
• • •
The signs were there. That’s what LSU insiders and observers said. Dorsey paid less attention to conditioning after his junior season. Bowe’s hands weren’t improving. Russell’s work habits were questionable from the start.
“JaMarcus was a bust waiting to happen,” said Landry, who lives in Louisiana. “A lot of people have misevaluated some of these LSU players.”
Landry said the problems started when those players emerged as NFL prospects, and their work habits slipped. He said LSU’s coaches failed to push those players, and as a result, they adopted poor approaches as acceptable.
“The program has slipped from a discipline and work-ethic standpoint,” Landry said. “They’re not nearly as demanding on them.”
LSU coach Les Miles did not respond to an interview request made to the school’s sports information department. It was Miles who took over after Nick Saban moved on in 2004, and on the surface, little seemed to change. The Tigers kept recruiting top athletes, kept winning big games and kept producing NFL prospects.
But as other dominant college teams became factories for NFL superstars — Miami, Southern California and Texas produced a combined 97 draft picks and 19 Pro Bowlers since 2003 — LSU was churning out players who looked the part, passed the combine tests and had futures that looked bright.
But something was different. Of LSU’s 21 players drafted in the first four rounds since ’03, only 12 have started the majority of their games. There are good players to have come out of LSU in the last decade. But none has yet become great.
“It’s disappointing,” one LSU insider said. “Somebody should have made a handful of Pro Bowls right now, and it hasn’t happened.”
The years passed. Again and again, NFL teams kept evaluating LSU players and seeing the one who might break the trend. They put in the time. Did the scouting. Made their grades. Marcus Spears was a can’t-miss. So was LaRon Landry. Dorsey, too. Bowe, Russell, Dorsey and Spears are among those who’ve been criticized for their conditioning habits. Others have been chided for work-ethic concerns. Their talent has spent years getting cold in the shadow of those worries.
“Everybody thought they were good players,” said NFL.com analyst Gil Brandt, a former Cowboys personnel director. “It doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t make sense.”
• • •
Larry Dauterive approached the woman last year. He’d seen her around. Dauterive is the football coach at East St. John High School, 53 miles southwest of Baton Rouge. Tyson Jackson’s mother worked in the school’s cafeteria.
Dauterive saw her shortly before last year’s draft. He smiled and passed along a message.
“You’re not going to have to wipe these tables off anymore,” Dauterive remembered saying.
Of Louisiana’s 4.4 million residents, 19.4 percent live in poverty. That’s the second-highest percentage in the country. Some of those residents are children. Some play football. Coaches know how to motivate Louisiana’s youngsters.
“Hey, you’ve got a chance” to reach the NFL, Dauterive said. “We’ve got some there. You can get there.
“That’s the carrot we dangle in front of them.”
The NFL means an escape. It means riches. It means that if you get there, your mama can stop wiping off tables in a school’s lunchroom. And Dauterive is right: Louisiana does have players there. Per capita, the state has more players in the NFL than any other. The best Louisiana players go to LSU. Its coaches recruit with promises, the same as any other. Championships. Big games. A chance at the NFL and all the things that means.
“The Tigers have put a fence around this state,” Dauterive said.
Many players thrive at LSU. They become All-Americans. They win awards. They are invited to the NFL combine, then for on-site interviews, then to Radio City Music Hall. Some make it. They reach that carrot; reach the goal that motivated them throughout their lives. Poverty is forever behind them.
Then what? Things change. Without the carrot, some are no longer motivated — not in the same way, at least.
John Murray is a sports psychologist based in South Florida. He sees it often: being poor drives a man to do great things; when he is no longer poor, he no longer craves greatness in that deep, visceral way.
“A lot of people do fall victim to that: They think they’ve achieved everything,” Murray said. “You lose your entire purpose when you don’t have something to strive for.”
Glenn Dorsey’s father cleaned the inside of oil drums and came home caked with grime. Dorsey’s contract with the Chiefs guaranteed him $23 million. Jackson’s mother worked in that school cafeteria. Now her son’s deal is worth a guaranteed $31 million.
They’re not the only ones.
“They are getting some fat contracts,” Dauterive said. “Maybe they are taking their foot off the pedal.”
• • •
Yes, there are success stories. Cincinnati’s Andrew Whitworth is a reliable offensive lineman. Arizona receiver Early Doucet showed potential at the end of last season. Washington safety LaRon Landry has started 47 games in three seasons. The Chiefs remain hopeful that their LSU draft picks can right their wrongs.
There is reason for optimism, and the Chiefs hope Bowe, Dorsey and Jackson can still reach a kind of greatness that once seemed a foregone conclusion. Dorsey took a step forward last year, after coaches harped on conditioning in an effort to undo years of bad habits.
Jackson showed promise in his rookie season, and the Chiefs hope they got in Jackson’s ear early enough that he won’t repeat his predecessors’ mistakes.He’s also playing for an organization that emphasizes conditioning and work ethic. General manager Scott Pioli and coach Todd Haley inherited Bowe and Dorsey, but Jackson was their pick.
For now, all that’s left to do is wait. The Chiefs would not participate in this story, a team spokesman telling The Star that the team’s five LSU players — Bowe, Travis Daniels, Dorsey, Jackson and Rudy Niswanger — each had reasons they preferred to avoid the subject.
For its part, the team is aware of the risks that seem to be involved in drafting an LSU player. It’s unlikely that the Chiefs will turn to LSU for their top pick a fourth consecutive year. The school doesn’t have a likely top-10 prospect, but there will be options later.
The Tigers had a dozen players invited to the scouting combine, the most of any college program. Numbers never were the problem. And for kicks, one draft Web site predicted the Chiefs will select LSU wide receiver Brandon LaFell in the second round.
Maybe if the Chiefs continue their tendency of drafting LSU players, perhaps it will be LaFell who overcomes the factors that have held back prospects from the school. Maybe he will be the one scouts have been waiting for.
Then again, some have seen all the evidence they need; they wouldn’t be willing to take the risk.
“It is a concern,” said Chris Landry, the former scout. “You have to acknowledge it, and you have to step away.”
Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/04/17/1152063/lsu-churns-out-nfl-players-but.html#ixzz0lSCVdmCb
DAL @ GB
