Well there you go, I said it. Ted Ginn is Troy Williamson there really isn’t a better comparison. I am absolutely dumbfounded that your professional scouting department could come to the conclusion that this is the second best WR in this draft class. Ginn could turn out to be a very serviceable receiver for the Phins, but there are two chances that he will actually live up to his draft position, slim and none. You don’t draft a 6′ 180 pound kid with the number 9 pick unless he is a corner, a position that Ginn should have stuck with coming out of high school but that is neither here nor there. TheddorGinn Jr. can run three pass routes, the 9, the deep post and the comeback, and maybe the slant if he hits the ground really quickly. He has limited understanding of the position, doesn’t read defense’s, drops too many easy balls and will not go across the middle. It is a bad sign when the season ticket holders boo a selection in front of the man who made the call. It didn’t get any better when Cameron, in an attempt to appease the masses, implored that they would love the excitementGinn brings to the kicking game. I am amazed that at that point in time there was not a man running up onto the stage in a desperate attempt to inflict some of that anger generated by that sentence upon the man who uttered it. There are a couple of things you shouldn’t do in a draft, one of them is drafting someone who’s primary tangible attribute to the team does not involve the position for which they will be cashing checks, such as taking a WRwhose main impact will be returning punts and kickoff’s instead of catching balls from the X position. Not to mention that you now have to pay your special teams ace just a little bit less than the Lions will pay Calvin Johnson. No wonder these guys are so upset.
Am I the only person in the world who does not see much in Brady Quinn? I think I am. I have pretty much accepted the fate of the Cleveland Browns selecting the Golden Boy, but I am not happy about it. I just don’t get how the hype that is inherent with being the starting QB at Notre Dame during it’s “return to prominence” (prominence that has not included a single win over an elite team in his four years as starter) can lead everyone to jump on his band wagon. Its hype, that’s all its ever been for Quinn he has blown up on average teams but hasn’t been able to win the big game. The usual retort to that is that he didn’t have anyone around him, that it was just him and his team of mental midgets taking on these juggernauts of teams. That’s bullshit, there has been talent around him. Didn’t Jeff Samardzija get named an All American in 2005? Didn’t Darius Walker put up 3,500 total yards in three years? But whenever someone knocks Quinn that is the first cop out put in place by the Quinn defenders, followed very closely by “He had to play in front of a bad offensive line” and lastly by “He never got any help from his defense.” They are all excuses and they are all worth the about the same thing, the approximate monetary value of my little finger. For a quarterback with as many starts as he has accumulated there is no excuse for the wild fits of downright sloppy play and inaccuracy that plagued him in games with Michigan State, LSU, USC and UCLA. The bottom line is if Quinn is as good as he thinks he is and, as good as everyone says he is he would be, for lack of a better word, transcendent. He would have beaten USC in 2005, he would have beaten LSU this year. The bottom line is that when the game is on the line against a truly elite team I don’t want the ball in his hands. He has not proven that he has deserved to have the ball in his hands. But he is going to be the savior of the Cleveland Browns? I would tend to think not.
Chances are that win or lose Ginn is going to take his game to the next level. He is projected by alot of different sources as being a first round pick. How they come to that conclusion is beyond me. He is not the best WR in his own class by any margin, personally I rank Calvin Johnson, Dwayne Jarrett and Robert Mecham over him. Not to mention guys like Dwayne Bowe and Steve Smith, maybe even Jeff Semardzija over Ginn. All of those guys have done more on the field and have performed at a high level more consistently than Ginn Jr. I never drank the Ginn Cool-Aid, and frankly I am not sure why anyone would. Ginn does do very well and they are run fast and run fast. He lacks polish on the finer aspects of playing receiver. Things like getting off the jam at the line of scrimmage, reading zone coverages, route running, and catching the Football consistently. There is also that little issue of Ginn fearing contact. Ginn will stick in the NFL but I don’t think that he will ever be a star. At OSUGinn induced fear in every defensive coordinator because of his speed. Ginn will not cause anyone to stay up late at night in the NFL. He has lived off of the fear and hype that was generated because of his stellar freshman year. Johnson and Jarrett have both made tremendous strides in every phase of the position while Ginn just continues to run faster than every one. He can’t do that in the NFL, not consistently.
