Things are slow, which means things that wouldn’t otherwise show up on the radar screen cause a blip.
Here’s something that caused a blip.
In response to the nonsensical “baby gronk” phenomenon, Senior Bowl general manager Jim Nagy released a lengthy tweet aimed at making it clear that preparing a child to play professional football at a young age doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, it’s all about being big, strong, fast and ready to go full speed against other soccer players – and developing these skills is immaterial to childhood training.
“If you don’t get any of this, good luck,” Nagy concluded. “When you start caring for your children, it hardly matters.”
Nagy’s point of view is relevant to some positions. For others, like the quarterback, a sudden growth spurt or a random incident that gives the player a rocket arm overnight doesn’t matter much if the player has little or no experience reading defenses, information before and during the game process, study game books etc film and/or directing other soccer players.
Rams quarterback Stetson Bennett opted for something more direct in response to Nagy.
“‘It rarely matters once you start nurturing your kids,'” Bennett tweeted. “Thank you for that comprehensive parental advice, Jim. Perhaps parents who have dreams for their children, or children with dreams in general, should only listen to you, master king of talent assessment. Lol – a scout who saw an opportunity…”
There is a story here. Bennett declined an invitation to the Senior Bowl. And Nagy then described Bennett as a mediocre candidate.
“The only quarterbacks in the five years that I’ve been here that we haven’t gotten in the past have been Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence,” Nagy previously said of SI.com’s Jonathan Williams. “These guys were the putative number 1 in the standings. We asked around before contacting Stetson’s folks and he was a sixth or seventh-round pick, which is a lot better than he was a priority free agent earlier in the year.”
The Rams selected Bennett in round four, even without Bennett attending the Senior Bowl.
The selection came as a surprise considering Bennett was widely regarded as someone who would advance in the later rounds. How much did Nagy’s comments affect Bennett’s perceived status? It obviously had no effect on the Rams.
Still, Bennett seems to harbor a grudge. It’s hard to blame him for that. The Senior Bowl is a business and depends on as many prospects as possible showing up and attending. When too many players refuse to continue training and play football for free after going two, three, four years without money, the Senior Bowl becomes, at best, a junior high production.
However, it’s Nagy’s job to get players to come. But it’s easy to see why Bennett would take offense at Nagy dismissing Bennett as the winner of the sixth or seventh round.
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