David Briggs: Hey anonymous, trash-talking NFL scouts, show your face
Apr. 13—FADE IN:
THE WAR ROOM OF YOUR FAVORITE NFL TEAM
Your team's lead scout in southwest Montana is on the phone giving a national reporter the scoop on one of the top quarterback prospects in the draft.
REPORTER
Is this guy real deal or what?
SCOUT
Listen, don't put my name to this, but here's the truth. His hands are too small.
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REPORTER
That doesn't seem so bad. [Double checks notes, sees that prospect completed 102 percent of his passes and threw for 9,000 yards last year]. Anything else?
SCOUT
[Laughs] Anything else?! What else is there? But, if you must know, for as bad as this guy is as a passer, he's an even worse person. I wouldn't touch him with a 10-yard first-down chain. Honestly, you'd see fewer red flags at a Soviet rally. I like to say he has the engine of a Ford Pinto, minus the explosiveness. Makes Spicoli look like a go-getter.
REPORTER
Wow, I had no idea. I'll be sure to let everybody know! Is he off your board?
SCOUT
[Looks around] Off the record? He's the top guy on it.
----That's about how it goes this time of year, no?
The anonymous NFL scout is as ubiquitous as a mosquito on a humid summer night, searching for willing and enabling media hosts through which to impugn the character of the top prospects in the draft.
Their motivations are as shrouded as their identity, but, often as not, the goal is to surround a player with enough smoke that you can't help but think there is fire. That way, maybe the player will fall far enough for their team to draft him themselves.
I suspect that's the case with Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields, who has come under nameless fire over whether he loves football enough.
In a recent appearance on the Pat McAfee Show, ESPN's Dan Orlovsky said of Fields: "I have heard that he is a last-guy-in, first-guy-out type of quarterback," Orlovsky said. "Like, not the maniacal work ethic . . . The second thing is, where is his desire to be a great quarterback? I think that there's a desire to be a big-time athlete, from what is expressed to me, but where is his desire to be a great quarterback?"
Now, I have no idea if this is true.
Seems doubtful.
For all of the fair criticisms of Fields' game — there are not a ton, but no quarterback is without flaws — questions about his work ethic and desire make me wonder if we're talking about the same player.
I mean, isn't this the guy who in his first year at Ohio State picked things up so quickly that he finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting, led the fight to have a season last year, and played through all kinds of pain, including after that rib-crunching hit in the Buckeyes' playoff victory over Clemson?
"There's a lot of talk out there, and I guess maybe they think they know him better than I do," Ohio State coach Ryan Day told reporters, nodding to anonymous NFL personnel. "When I think of Justin Fields, I think of somebody who got off the field against Clemson [in 2019 3/8 and for the next year just grinded toward getting back to that same situation and winning that game.
"It started with the offseason. He got in here and he was one of the hardest workers in the weight room. Then it went to the quarantine, and during that time, [strength coach] Mick Marotti actually said that [Fields] inspired him. Justin Fields inspired Mick Marotti. He changed his diet. His work ethic was off the charts. He came in here in great shape. Then we get here and the preseason gets canceled, the season gets canceled. He doesn't opt out and go to the NFL draft. Some guys did.
"So, I've heard all kinds of different things, I don't know what people have said and what they haven't. I don't quite understand any of that stuff. Love for football? There are a lot of guys who opted out. Are they saying the same things about those guys who didn't want to play? Now, not only does he not opt out, he fights to get the season back. He has a petition, he goes on national TV and fights to get the season back. Then he comes out and plays — and plays really well."
If that's a guy who doesn't love football, give me an entire team of guys who are so indifferent.
Regardless, though, whether there's any truth to the rumblings — anyone else wonder if they're coming from Georgia coaches still jilted that Fields left after one season? — or they're part of an orchestrated smear campaign, it really doesn't matter.
My issue is the media's complicity in this kind of nonsense.
Note to anyone with a microphone or keyboard: Let us all be better than casually passing along second-hand attacks on the character of a player without providing either specifics or the name of the source.
If an NFL scout or executive wants to publicly rip somebody, more power to 'em. If not, let someone else carry their dirty water.