re: Mike Leach: It's selfish for players to opt out of bowl games

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How is expanding the playoffs going to make these game more meaningful? The more games, the higher possibilty of getting hurt. If anything it just encourages them to declare for the draft earlier.

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This is interesting. However it is a bit different in that you are actually playing for a ring. You are playing in front of the whole nation for the first time when their aren't competing games on TV. You are playing against top calibler competition to test your talent.

But I'm sure sooner or later we will see somebody opt out of the playoffs.

Totally agree with Leach on this.

Sorry. I don't agree. Every player would do the same for a meaningless bowl. Playoff game, I could understand the sentiment.

Their livelihoods depend on their health. It's selfish to expect them to risk their future for something that doesn't really mean all that much.

There's also value in a high draft pick for the school.

Actually they need to rephrase the action to “I quit “

Ultimately it is the player’s decision and if they want to quit the team before the season is over that is their prerogative. Just man up and say “I quit the team” and be done with it.

I am the same age as Leach and our upbringing taught us that we did not quit a sports team that we were a part of regardless of the circumstances. You toughed it out. In this present day, players are just quitting because someone is whispering in their ear that they should.

Comparing players and coaches is a bit different. Coaches are subject to being fired in the middle of the season for just losing a game or for even not winning a game impressively enough.
I never seen a player dismissed in the middle of the season because the team lost a game.

But using the word “opt-out” is a sham to make themselves look better. So I hope to see term “I quit” used going forward.

I also agree with his premise that too many players leave college early. Yes a few are ready but many more cost themselves potentially millions by leaving early and then going undrafted or drafted much lower than they hoped to be. Again it is their choice but I MO many of them get bogus information about their chances and don’t get a realistic evaluation.

I think about Bear Wilson who left State early and then was not drafted. Now he is dead. Had he stayed one more year in college he would have had the opportunity to be a high draft pick. Why you ask? He was mainly a basketball player in HS and had only been playing WR for three years in college. He was still growing and improving and his ceiling was unlimited. But he was not ready for the NFL when he left State a year early. He was given bad information.
And now he ended up being murdered a couple of years ago when he should have been having a nice NFL career.

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I never seen a player dismissed in the middle of the season because the team lost a game.

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Then youve never watched a down of the NFL. It happens weekly.

As a fan, a coach, teammate-- I agree with him. As the player in question, I wouldn't want some fat sausage-fingers lineman falling on my ankle in the frickshit bowl and ending my career when I'm *that* close to the goal. All depends on perspective.

My favorite part was he couldn’t remember if that one guy practiced. The pirate