NFL Executive: "When I see Jameis Winston, I see Jamarcus Russell"

[SomeGuy]

LMAO @ this thread. I would love to know who that executive was

Still too early but that was exciting. Can't watch the replay.

 

[GeekSportsFan]

NFL executive: 'With Jameis Winston I see JaMarcus Russell' - CBSSports.com

NFL executive: 'With Jameis Winston I see JaMarcus Russell'
By Jared Dubin | NFL Writer

April 24, 2015 10:06 am ET


An unnamed NFL executive, speaking to Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, compared presumptive No. 1 overall pick Jameis Winston to an all-time draft bust. "With Jameis Winston I see JaMarcus Russell," the executive said. "Isn't it interesting?"

"I see the body. I see the lack of focus. I see the same coach and system. Only Winston's not as good an athlete and his arm isn't as strong as JaMarcus'," the executive said. "We're looking at another guy that's a product of the system and has tremendous athletes around him."

It's especially strange to hear the "system" talk applied to Winston, since it has been Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota who has had to deal with that more in the lead-up to next week's draft. One of the virtues many scouts extoll when talking about Winston is his familiarity with the pro-style offense due to the system he ran under Jimbo Fisher at Florida State. In this case, though, it's being used as a negative.

If we exclude the possibility that this executive is hallucinating -- looking at one person and seeing an entirely different person is quite weird and something that should be checked out -- and run with the comparison, let's see what similarities we can come up with.

• Size: Jameis stands 6-feet-4 and weighs 230 pounds. Russell is 6-6 and was 265 pounds heading into the NFL Draft
• Coach: Fisher, who coached Winston at FSU, was the quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator during Russell's time at LSU
• Name: Both players have names that start with the letters J-A-M and end with "iss" sounds.

Yep. That's pretty much it. Across a similar number of passes in their careers as college starters (851 for Winston, 797 for Russell), Winston had a completion percentage 4.1 points higher (66.0 to 61.9), threw for 9.4 yards per attempt to Russell's 8.3 (and as a result threw for 1,339 more yards) and recorded a touchdown on 7.6 percent of his passes compared to Russell's 6.5 percent mark.

Russell was touted almost solely for his size and arm strength coming into the draft, while many have focused on Winston's leadership and football intelligence on the field in addition to his physical gifts. It's certainly possible Winston could fail at the NFL level, but it seems fairly unlikely that it will be because he let himself go physically and could not hold up in the mental side of the game as was the case with Russell.

Only problem with this statement is that Russell was a fat, lazy slob with no work ethic who felt he could rest on his laurels and athletic ability. Winston on the other hand, has worked his ass off ever since he left Florida State and you can see the work paying off as he gets better each week. Bumps in the road for sure, but Winston is going to be an outstanding NFL QB.