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Josh Rosen has a chip on his shoulder the size of Cleveland, Buffalo, New York and Denver combined. Said chip hovers over the Rocky Mountains and is as large as the biggest skyscraper in New York City.
Josh Rosen’s fall to the 10th pick in the 2018 NFL Draft has been the topic of debate around the league. (Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
See, Rosen found himself drafted No. 10 overall by the Arizona Cardinals in the 2018 NFL Draft. A quarterback many had pegged as either the best or second-best player at his position ultimately became the fourth signal caller drafted in Arlington during the annual event.
Obviously, this didn’t sit well with the former UCLA standout. “There were nine mistakes made ahead of me,” Rosen said following the draft.
But this is something Rosen himself had to deal with during the pre-draft process. Whether it was the narrative of him being immature or a “red flag” that suggested interests outside of football weren’t a good thing, it was a never-ending loop of baseless accusations against the quarterback. Leaks to the media from NFL teams.
That didn’t change after the draft. New Cleveland Browns executive Alonzo Highsmith, GM John Dorsey’s right-hand man, made this clear and a whole lot more recently.
“I was at an airport,” Highsmith said, via CBS Sports. “UCLA’s volleyball team was in front of me. You heard so much about Rosen. He’s this or that. We all know how people talk. So I asked one of the volleyball coaches, ‘What’s Rosen like?’ He said, ‘Aaaaa, you should probably ask his girlfriend. She’s one of the players. She’s over there.'”
Fun story, right? Rosen has a girlfriend who so happens to play volleyball at UCLA. Said volleyball coach told Highsmith to ask Rosen’s girlfriend about the young man.
Apparently that didn’t sit well with the exec.
“I’m like, ‘All right coach. That’s good enough.’ I don’t know what all this means, but there was something about him that bothered me,” Highsmith concluded, via CBS.
What in the world are we even doing here? How did someone telling Highsmith to ask another individual close to Rosen about the quarterback turn into some sort of a red flag?
To be frank, this isn’t a new standard operating procedure around an NFL community that’s bending over backwards to make itself look bad.
Back in March, former Notre Dame receiver and eventual Green Bay Packers sixth-round pick Equanimeous St. Brown noted that teams questioned his love for football because the pass catcher went to Notre Dame and speaks multiple languages. “That’s the most common question I get,” St. Brown said at the time.
More so now than in the past, teams are apparently using a psychological approach to determine the character of NFL Draft prospects. In fact, some might call it sociological based on the interpretation of millennials somehow being interested in too many things outside of football. Imagine that.
It’s a bad thing that a volleyball coach without any real first-hand knowledge of Rosen passed on providing an opinion of the young man. It’s a bad thing that St. Brown speaks multiple languages.
Despite multiple off-field issues at Florida, wide receiver Antonio Callaway was drafted in the fourth round by Cleveland. (Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The backdrop here being teams insisting on ignoring true red flags. Highsmith’s own Browns team traded up in the fourth round of last week’s draft for former Florida wide receiver Antonio Callaway. Considered a first-round on-field talent, Callaway was off the draft boards of many teams after a career at Florida that included grand theft charges and sexual assault allegations. Most recently, Callaway failed a drug test at the 2018 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis this winter.
The trade in question yielded an additional sixth-round pick to New England for Cleveland’s rights to move up for Callaway. That sixth-round pick was several selections higher than where St. Brown himself went. Where’s the true red flag pertaining to St. Brown in comparison to Callaway? There isn’t one. Instead, it’s all about talent.
Back to Rosen for a second. If he were a prospect at the level of a Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck, common sense seems to indicate that all of these red flags would have been glossed over. Despite being seen as one of the top-two quarterbacks in the class by those in the media, teams apparently had a different feeling.
After all, it was just reported that the Cardinals were upset about their inability to land Josh Allen in a trade up instead of Rosen himself.
With the advent of social media and other factors that enable teams to dig deeper into prospects, we’ve seen even more narratives be thrown out there.
Allen himself was the subject of criticism for what were seemingly racially insensitive tweets that were made public knowledge on draft day. Said tweets brought in pop culture as a way for Allen, then a high school student, to attempt to be funny. It backfired, as teams had renewed questions about his own personality.
Even then, Allen himself was drafted seventh overall after Buffalo traded up for the quarterback. One has to wonder how Rosen’s draft stock would have been impacted if said tweets were sent from his account. Just some food for thought there.
In general, the hiring process around the United States has changed a great deal in recent years. An individual’s credit history is now being taken into account. Potential employers are also looking at social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) when vetting new hires. This is no different around the NFL.
Instead, it’s simply the narratives that continue to be thrown out there surrounding Josh Rosen and other prospects that should concern us. No concrete information. Just conjecture. Highsmith’s comments represent this to a T. And it’s a true black eye for the NFL.
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Josh Rosen has a chip on his shoulder the size of Cleveland, Buffalo, New York and Denver combined. Said chip hovers over the Rocky Mountains and is as large as the biggest skyscraper in New York City.
Josh Rosen’s fall to the 10th pick in the 2018 NFL Draft has been the topic of debate around the league. (Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
See, Rosen found himself drafted No. 10 overall by the Arizona Cardinals in the 2018 NFL Draft. A quarterback many had pegged as either the best or second-best player at his position ultimately became the fourth signal caller drafted in Arlington during the annual event.
Obviously, this didn’t sit well with the former UCLA standout. “There were nine mistakes made ahead of me,” Rosen said following the draft.
But this is something Rosen himself had to deal with during the pre-draft process. Whether it was the narrative of him being immature or a “red flag” that suggested interests outside of football weren’t a good thing, it was a never-ending loop of baseless accusations against the quarterback. Leaks to the media from NFL teams.
That didn’t change after the draft. New Cleveland Browns executive Alonzo Highsmith, GM John Dorsey’s right-hand man, made this clear and a whole lot more recently.
“I was at an airport,” Highsmith said, via CBS Sports. “UCLA’s volleyball team was in front of me. You heard so much about Rosen. He’s this or that. We all know how people talk. So I asked one of the volleyball coaches, ‘What’s Rosen like?’ He said, ‘Aaaaa, you should probably ask his girlfriend. She’s one of the players. She’s over there.'”
Fun story, right? Rosen has a girlfriend who so happens to play volleyball at UCLA. Said volleyball coach told Highsmith to ask Rosen’s girlfriend about the young man.
Apparently that didn’t sit well with the exec.
“I’m like, ‘All right coach. That’s good enough.’ I don’t know what all this means, but there was something about him that bothered me,” Highsmith concluded, via CBS.
What in the world are we even doing here? How did someone telling Highsmith to ask another individual close to Rosen about the quarterback turn into some sort of a red flag?
To be frank, this isn’t a new standard operating procedure around an NFL community that’s bending over backwards to make itself look bad.
Back in March, former Notre Dame receiver and eventual Green Bay Packers sixth-round pick Equanimeous St. Brown noted that teams questioned his love for football because the pass catcher went to Notre Dame and speaks multiple languages. “That’s the most common question I get,” St. Brown said at the time.
More so now than in the past, teams are apparently using a psychological approach to determine the character of NFL Draft prospects. In fact, some might call it sociological based on the interpretation of millennials somehow being interested in too many things outside of football. Imagine that.
It’s a bad thing that a volleyball coach without any real first-hand knowledge of Rosen passed on providing an opinion of the young man. It’s a bad thing that St. Brown speaks multiple languages.
Despite multiple off-field issues at Florida, wide receiver Antonio Callaway was drafted in the fourth round by Cleveland. (Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The backdrop here being teams insisting on ignoring true red flags. Highsmith’s own Browns team traded up in the fourth round of last week’s draft for former Florida wide receiver Antonio Callaway. Considered a first-round on-field talent, Callaway was off the draft boards of many teams after a career at Florida that included grand theft charges and sexual assault allegations. Most recently, Callaway failed a drug test at the 2018 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis this winter.
The trade in question yielded an additional sixth-round pick to New England for Cleveland’s rights to move up for Callaway. That sixth-round pick was several selections higher than where St. Brown himself went. Where’s the true red flag pertaining to St. Brown in comparison to Callaway? There isn’t one. Instead, it’s all about talent.
Back to Rosen for a second. If he were a prospect at the level of a Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck, common sense seems to indicate that all of these red flags would have been glossed over. Despite being seen as one of the top-two quarterbacks in the class by those in the media, teams apparently had a different feeling.
After all, it was just reported that the Cardinals were upset about their inability to land Josh Allen in a trade up instead of Rosen himself.
With the advent of social media and other factors that enable teams to dig deeper into prospects, we’ve seen even more narratives be thrown out there.
Allen himself was the subject of criticism for what were seemingly racially insensitive tweets that were made public knowledge on draft day. Said tweets brought in pop culture as a way for Allen, then a high school student, to attempt to be funny. It backfired, as teams had renewed questions about his own personality.
Even then, Allen himself was drafted seventh overall after Buffalo traded up for the quarterback. One has to wonder how Rosen’s draft stock would have been impacted if said tweets were sent from his account. Just some food for thought there.
In general, the hiring process around the United States has changed a great deal in recent years. An individual’s credit history is now being taken into account. Potential employers are also looking at social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) when vetting new hires. This is no different around the NFL.
Instead, it’s simply the narratives that continue to be thrown out there surrounding Josh Rosen and other prospects that should concern us. No concrete information. Just conjecture. Highsmith’s comments represent this to a T. And it’s a true black eye for the NFL.