Sean Taylor - - choirboy

Given the angst expressed by many of the folks here about Sean Taylor and whether or not he might have been the "wrong pick", I included this paragraph in my daily offering at www.sportscurmudgeon.com. Thought some of you might take this as a good sign:


Fans of the Washington Redskins are “concerned” about Sean Taylor. He has not signed a contract yet; he did not have an agent until late last week; he skipped out on the mandatory NFL Rookie Seminar and got fined $25K; some of the fans on one of the fan websites are asking if he might have been the “wrong choice”. Relax folks; here is what you mean when you say that the kid your team took at #1 in the draft is the “wrong choice”. Jeff Allison was the Florida Marlins first pick in the MLB draft in June 2003. Allison signed his contract with the Marlins and got a signing bonus reported to be $1.8M. This spring he reported late to the Marlins minor league camp for unexplained reasons and in May he just left that training camp. The Marlins suspended him and later he revealed to the Boston papers that he had a dependency on the painkiller OxyContin. This seems pretty bleak but today it is reported that Allison had been in the hospital for 3 days because he overdosed on heroin and the friend who was sharing the heroin with him noticed he was having trouble breathing and took him to the hospital.

Memo to Washington Redskins Fans: This is a “wrong choice” for #1 in a draft. So far, Sean Taylor has been a choirboy compared to Jeff Allison.

Thanks for the reality check, sportscurmudgeon. One thing that I don't understand about these rookies - especially Taylor - is why they don't try to get a contract quickly. These guys are 20-22 years old (my age), yet seem to be able to sustain themselves without any income! I understand that if they have an agent, the agent can probably help them out until a contract is signed, but for somebody like Taylor - who had no agent - I don't understand their thinking. If I were drafted in April, I'd want to get a contract fairly quickly so I could buy myself a few toys and have time to play with them before camp started. :)

Maybe this is why I am not an agent...

cpayne5:

As soon as a kid signs with a team, he has to follow all the rules of the team. As long as he has no contract, he can pick and choose what he will be doing with the team and what he won't. That is part of the delay in signing on.

In addition, the negotiation process is kinda like being recruited when the kid was deciding where to go to college. It's nice to have people fawning all over you and telling you what a great player you are and how much they want you. That makes you feel good. As soon as you sign, your position coach is telling you that you are only slightly more valuable than a sack of wet goat sh*t. So there's another incentive to sign on later instead of earlier.

Big time college athletes are not without sources of funds. How do you think that these kids drive their Jags and Hummers while they are still in school? That's why the "eviction story" was so strange with regard to Taylor. He has/had access to money sufficient to pay off any "back rent" he might have had on his college apartment.

By any standard you'd like to offer, I am far more pleased with Sean Taylor's behavior than Jeff Allison's. Miami Marlins' fans probably would like to hang this guy up by his thumbs...

S.Taylor is going to be a great pick! I can't wait to watch him start wacking people!!

as far as the warpath goes, him being the "wrong pick" was more a result of having nothing else to talk about, and focusing on his problems. I dont think many of us think he was the wrong pick... I hope, was there ever a poll about this?

what fun would it be if we didn't over analyze things and get hyped up over nothing??!!:laughing-

Let me point out that Taylor is the first high draft pick since 1999 to be in camp on time..........things are starting to look good for this kid.

what fun would it be if we didn't over analyze things and get hyped up over nothing??!!:laughing-

None at all, none at all.

Also, there are a lot of younger guys on this site (my apologies to 90% of you "young guys" that this does NOT apply to...). It seems like a few of them, in their zeal for their team, get very impatient, and sometimes a bit removed from the realities of some situations. A couple more years following the NFL closely will usually cure that for most.

Of course, at MY age, everyone on the site is a "young guy" LOL. Guess I'm just an OLD FART, as my favorite cousin likes to remind me daily.

Also, there are a lot of younger guys on this site (my apologies to 90% of you "young guys" that this does NOT apply to...). It seems like a few of them, in their zeal for their team, get very impatient, and sometimes a bit removed from the realities of some situations. A couple more years following the NFL closely will usually cure that for most.

Of course, at MY age, everyone on the site is a "young guy" LOL. Guess I'm just an OLD FART, as my favorite cousin likes to remind me daily.


Hey man your the same age as Gibbs. Don't be so hard on yourself. Old timer...j/k