Cut His Mic Off: Double Feature

"If he plays an SEC team, his stock will fall. I ain’t got nothing against him. He’s a Pac-12 guy. I’m not a Pac 12 fan at all, I’m an SEC guy. But if he ever plays against an SEC school, Alabama, LSU, that draft stock is going to fall. That will be one game they just don’t show the scouts."

-- Niners defensive lineman Ricky Jean Francois

A couple things you should know before going forward. Francois is referring to the unquestioned #1 pick of the 2012 NFL Draft and Heisman Trophy favorite, Stanford QB Andrew Luck. It should also be mentioned that Francois played his college ball at LSU, where he was a teammate of another QB who went #1 overall in JaMarcus Russell. In his three years in the NFL, Francois has notched a whopping 16, count 'em, 16 tackles in 22 games with one sack. That's not to say that Ricky's lack of production and current standing as a complete nobody somehow takes away any validity to his opinions. That's why I'm here, to offer the counter argument.

Dating back to 1989, when the Dallas Cowboys took a mullet-adorning ranch boy named Troy Aikman out of UCLA, the scoreboard in the battle of QB supremacy between the SEC and Pac-10 has the West Coast up big over their Southern counterparts. Granted, the SEC has the biggest name of that group in Colts QB Peyton Manning but beyond Peyton and his brother, Eli, the list for the SEC is pretty sketchy.

Matt Stafford(Georgia)? Injury-prone his first few years but starting to come on this season.
Tim Tebow(Florida)? Jury's still out.
Francois' teammate, JaMarcus Russell(LSU)? Biggest bust of this decade.
Jason Campbell(Auburn)? Meh....just replaced by a Pac-10 QB named Carson Palmer.
Tim Couch(Kentucky)? Bust.
Danny Wuerffel, Shane Matthews, Rex Grossman(Florida)? Garbage.
Cam Newton(Auburn)? Fine rookie year so far. We'll see what happens going forward.

Now, let's take a look at the guys who cut their teeth on the West Coast.

Troy Aikman(UCLA)? Three-time Super Bowl champ and Hall of Famer.
Drew Bledsoe(Washington State)? Multiple-time Pro Bowler
Aaron Rodgers(Cal)? Super Bowl champ, 2011 MVP favorite, arguably best QB in the NFL
Carson Palmer(USC)? Good start but fell off after blowing out his knee a few years ago.
Matt Leinart(USC)? Bust.
Mark Sanchez(USC)? Led Jets to the AFC Championship first two seasons but still unspectacular.
Ryan Leaf(Washington State)? Biggest bust in NFL history, though JaMarcus Russell is close.
Joey Harrington(Oregon)? Terrible pro QB, even worse bike rider.




Now, Francois' argument, technically, isn't that SEC QB's are better than Pac-10 QB's(nor should it be, because that argument is ridiculous). Francois is suggesting that Luck somehow would flounder playing in the tough SEC instead of the suddenly soft Pac-10(or Pac-12, as it's known now) but there is absolutely no way to make that case unless Luck's Cardinal square off against Francois' Tigers at some point this season. Luck chose Stanford for the same reasons any bright kid would choose Stanford: great education, good weather, up-and-coming football program. I don't think "avoiding Alabama every year" factored into the decision-making.

Furthermore, it's hard to say that guys who battle in the SEC show more merit than QB's who feast on Pac-10 defenses when your most recent examples are two unconventional option QB's(Tebow and Newton), a former #1 pick who's career is over after five years(Russell) and another who has yet to play a full season(Stafford). Russell cut his teeth against the SEC and, you know what, Ricky, it didn't help him any. He still sucked. Luck can only play the guys on his schedule and, so far, he's dominated every last one of them. I know that players know players but you're going to have to come up with a better way to elevate your journeyman status than trying to make headlines by throwing half-hearted jabs at "The Next Big Thing". We could be wrong about Luck. So could you. Until then, your mic is cut off.

"I don't tell nobody, but I feel like I can be better than Michael Jordan, When I'm done playing, I don't want people to say, Michael Jordan is the best player. I want that to be me. That's how I am. That's how I was built."

-- Washington Wizards guard Jordan Crawford

I'll admit that maybe this quote is getting a bit blown out of proportion. After all, every kid whoever laced up a pair of Nikes did so wanting to be like Mike(well, not me, I was more of a Magic Johnson kind of guy). And there's nothing wrong with a kid wanting to end his career as the best to ever do it. That's a great aspiration. However, if Crawford had the potential to be better than the greatest basketball player to ever live, then clearly the New Jersey Nets(who initially drafted him) and the Atlanta Hawks(who acquired him from NJ on Draft day before trading him midseason to Washington in the vaunted Mike Bibby-Kirk Hinrich trade) didn't see it. The Wizards don't seem to be too convinced either as Crawford currently sits behind Nick Young on the depth chart......you know, when pro basketball resumes and all. Perhaps the reason Crawford doesn't tell people he thinks he's better than Jordan is to avoid the cavalcade of bitch-slaps across the head he'd get from anyone in listening range, which is exactly what the reporter should have done after Crawford was finished speaking. To date, Crawford's biggest achievement was posterizing LeBron James at a basketball camp while Crawford was still a sophomore at Xavier.....and it wasn't even a full-fledged Vince-Carter-nuts-in-Fred-Weis'-face-type of posterizing. Hey, maybe Crawford is a late bloomer. It took Steve Nash a few years and a trade to Dallas to become the Steve Nash of today. Kobe needed a couple years before transforming into "The Black Mamba". Maybe we'll look back on this and eat our words.

Or maybe, and perhaps more likely, Crawford will join Harold Minor, J.R. Rider, Darius Miles, DerMarr Johnson and a slew of others on the Jordan Wannabe All-Star team. Don't get a sugar rush from drinking your own Kool-Aid, kid, and hand that mic over because it's now cut off.