Is Auburn’s Cam Newton the National Football League’s number one draft pick? - Part 1
Gil Brandt, a senior analyst for the National Football League, thinks that Cam Newton from Auburn University is a number one pick, is he really?
A senior analyst for the NFL said, “It would shock me… If he’s [Cam Newton] not the first player picked [in the 2011 NFL Draft]. If I was drafting and I had Carolina’s [number one] pick, I’d feel really good about who I was getting as far as ability.”
Aaron James Hawk, line-backer for the Green Bay Packers is a fan of Newton, but is not so sure that he is number one in overall quality. He thinks that “he’s a little bit… untested.” Hawk has nothing against Newton but he is “not a big fan of drafting quarter-backs
number one overall.” He thinks that sometimes you get a quarter-back like New England Patriots’ Tom Brady, who was picked 199th overall, and sometimes you get a great quarter-back like Indianapolis Colts’ Peyton Manning, who was picked number one
overall. He says that sometimes a quarter-back “explodes and becomes like Peyton” but it does not happen often.
Even when Manning was picked, not everyone was for him to be selected number one. About 60 percent of fans said that Manning should be picked number one while the other 40 percent had other players in mind, mostly Ryan Leaf.
It really is a risky venture to go number one overall with a quarter-back. Making a bad decision at this position will set your organization back a couple of years. If you look back in history, you can find a couple of first round picks that worked out,
including Manning, but there are a lot more that did not work out. We really do not know a lot about Newton right now and if you go back recently to when it was Mario Williams versus Reggie Bush for the first overall pick, everybody was shocked when the Houston
Texans signed Williams because most people felt that Bush was a better player. When you take a look at them now, Williams was a better choice. We do not know if Newton is going to make it as a big star or not and anybody that thinks they do, is fooling themselves.
Newton’s toughest opponent is going to be this offseason. The naysayers out there are going to poke him, prod him and doubt him. At the end of the day, when it is all said and done at the end of April’s draft, Newton may very well be the first overall pick.
Remember, it just takes one person, one team, to fall in love with him and this kid is going to answer the bell, make a huge affair to remember and Brandt will not be wrong.
One of the questions for Newton at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis is a Tweet of something that Newton said, “I see myself not only as a football player, but an entertainer and an icon.”
That is going to send up a lot of flags because all anybody wants him to say is that he is a football player, wants to be the best football player, knows nothing yet and is there to learn and study.
To see what other reasons are behind Newton becoming, or not becoming, the first overall pick, check out the next part of this article.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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