QFT Quoted For Truth
If I was Mac, I would probably feel the same way. The stars aligned and McNair blew it. Mac does a lot of good stuff for this city, he gets a pass for pulling out his sponsorship imho.
Oh pul-eeze.
Mac did his full page ad supporting VY the day before the draft. By that time, it was way to late to do anything other than being an attention ho.
The 2006 draft was a product of horrible timing and a GM who was reluctant to seriously consider unconventional players or to give up on DC.
Vince declares in January. He hires an inexperienced family friend to be his agent. Someone with no negotiating track record and someone inexperienced with shepherding someone through the draft process. The sort of agent who in the agent scheme of things is one step above Master P. His agent immediately mishandled various PR matters relating to VY. Some things football related and some things not so much.
An experienced agent, someone like a Leigh Steinberg might have made the case in JANUARY to the Texans that VY by any measure should be the first pick in the draft and as worth giving up on Carr, retraining a QB, AND foregoing the opportunity cost of not picking Bush. To take VY would have been a significantly unconventional football move based on the information that existed at the time. (The belief that Carr was an athletic QB that could be coached up if he had actual decent coaching).
Carr's option had to be picked up in March. If the Texans dumped him then, they get nothing and have no quarterbacks. (Sage was signed in mid March) If they go that route, they are basically held hostage to VY and his agent with no track record. Because as unhappy as Texans fans were last year passing VY/Bush, they would have burnt down Reliant if the Texans went QB and didn't pick VY. Or picked Bush and relied on Rosenfels. Whoever was going to end up as the QB of the Texans not named VY wasn't going to get a fair shake from fans, and this is an effect that the Texans underestimated. Of the non-VY quarterbacks, Carr was the conventional choice based on at least the promise of early 2004.
I own three "Draft Vince" shirts. I put them away after Carr's contract was picked up because it would make no sense to take VY at that point.
The Bush non-pick was also a result of some terrible timing too. (All the NCAA violation payment stuff hitting the fan right before the draft and not really realizing the seriousness of Dominick DW's knee or that Mathis was going to be out all season).
All this Vick stuff illustrates the perils of off-field stuff to your salary cap. Federal prosecutions are all about discretion. The Feds are still investigating various aspects of the Reggie Bush payment stuff. (sorta like the feds investigated that NBA ref thing for a long time before it just recently came out). If the feds have Bush on tape admitting to taking payments, it is not much of a stretch to bust someone for not paying income taxes. The Texans claim that money was not the issue, and off-field stuff was not the issue, but I can't imagine those things helped up much.
A lot of people thought San Diego was stupid when they passed up Vick. Now, not so much. Funny how time changes perceptions.
(I also think that Bush would be a Houston Texan if his agent had done a better job. Bush's pre-draft posturing that he was excited about being the first pick [but rarely saying that he was excited to come to Houston though he expressed a lot of excitement about being in New York] didn't help his stock here.)
Neither here nor there. It would be interesting seeing an alternative history where either Vince or Reggie is drafted. I can see a million different histories, some good, some not so good, and the answer is that once choices are made, you never know what would have happened in the alternative histories.
He needed an agent to bust the Texans doors down in January and make the case that VY was the BPA because there was an uphill battle to get rid of Carr--in January, VY's agent was more interested in getting $200 autographs signed at the Co-op.
