Saturday, September 20, 2014

The plunging NFL Jameis Winston stock.

Future Major League pitcher?
The more I peer into my looking glass:

I see a future in baseball for Florida State QB Jameis Winston.

Character Matters

 For what ever rhyme or reason, Winston, two sport phenom and reigning Heisman trophy laureate, continues to struggle with off-field issues.

And to be sure, we are talking about character (or lack there of) issues.

As reported:

"Based upon the results of our continuing investigation of Tuesday's incident involving Jameis Winston, we have decided to not play him for the entire game against Clemson on Saturday night," interim Florida State president Garnett S. Stokes and athletic director Stan Wilcox said in a joint statement Friday night.

Winston will be on Florida State's sideline during the game, sources told ESPN's Heather Cox.
Winston was seen shouting an obscene sexual phrase on campus Tuesday, the latest incident in which his off-field behavior has caused headaches for the team and university.

Florida State students began flooding Twitter as several witnessed the star quarterback allegedly stand on a table in or in the immediate vicinity of the student union and yell obscenities, mimicking a popular Internet video.

When announcing the original ban Wednesday, Stokes and Wilcox denounced Winston's behavior, calling it "offensive and vulgar" in a joint statement. source

To complicate matters, The Jameis Show continues to play-out at the most inopportune moment. As even the casual fan knows, the NFL is in full crisis mode and their brand has been greatly tarnished by the rash of recent domestic violence:

  • Baltimore Raven Ray Rice -- knocking unconscious his then finance in an elevator.
  • Minnesota Viking Adrian Peterson -- accused of injuring one of his son by harshly spanking him.
  • Carolina Panther Greg Hardy -- accused of violently injuring his girlfriend with a head butt.
  • San Francisco 49erRay McDonald arrested for domestic violence. 
With a past sexual assault accusation and an infamous crab leg shoplifting incident, Winston is not demonstrating he is worthy to be a face of a NFL franchise. The under-the-microscope NFL, most likely, perceives him as a too risky and impulsive -- even though he is an on the field freak of nature -- prospect to bet the family ranch on.

As one scout stated:

Especially in an age that has transformed dramatically over the past two weeks amid the Ray Rice, Greg Hardy and Adrian Peterson cases — where character must be weighed differently.

"When ownership gets involved, there's a change," the director said. "When you see what's happening [around the league], you know teams will be hearing from the top down that certain things will not be tolerated. It's already happening."  source

To reiterate, I hope Winston's fastball is Major League baseball ready...


1 comment:

  1. It is very hard to watch media attempt to paint the NFL as a culture of domestic violence and child abuse and corruption. Because it is very uncomfortable to watch grown-ass, supposedly educated people who prove consistently that even rudimentary math is beyond their grasp.

    Case in point: Jemele Hill and her insistence on using 1) The (debunked) study which states 1:5 women are victims of domestic violence; 2) Using said study to criticize the NFL for having a "culture" problem. And she's not the only one.

    If 1:5 women are victims of domestic violence, that means 10.6 players on every 53-man roster are going home and beating their wives and girlfriends. That should equate to 339.2 male abusers in the NFL every year, if the NFL is even on par with the supposed national average. Let's just say that only 30 players--forgetting coaches, trainers, etc; only players--have wives and gfs on the team. Per the supposed average, that's still 6 players on every NFL team who are committing domestic violence. That's 192 players across the league.

    Of course, for the NFL to be a "culture" of these things, it necessarily--emphasis on necessarily--has to be above the average. So, it would have to be Y>X, when it is most certainly not.

    Ray Rice's crime wasn't hitting someone. It was that he hit a woman. Roger's crime wasn't that he suspended Rice for only 2 games. It was that he didn't wait for feminist input and society's mock rage to dictate his decision.

    Unfortunately for Winston going forward, there's a young woman out there with a story that could keep him out of the league altogether. Whether innocent or guilty, if this young woman is so inclined, she can get a huge payday right around draft time, rehashing the story, and I doubt any NFL team would take Winston at all.

    Here's what he will probably have to do before appearing "clean" to the league. He will have to hold a press conference, nationally publicized, wherein he apologizes to all women because he's male. Sounds hyperbolic, but hyperbole is the very nature of the NFL's controversies here.

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