I wonder why nobody here is questioning Williams' character right now-
USC quarterback Caleb Williams will likely be the first pick in the 2024 draft.
www.nbcsports.com
I'm not much of a college football fan and I don't know if this is an early negotiating tactic, but when I came across this article, my first thought was "You can choose to wait to draft a QB, but what happens if the QB doesn't want you and still has another year of college eligibility and his NIL money?"
Here are some interesting quotes:
“I’ve always been able to choose the team that I’ve played on, and then everything’s been scheduled for me,” Williams told Sam Schube of GQ. “But now, going into this next part of my career, it’s weird [because] it’s so uncertain. You don’t know anything.
You can’t control anything but you and how you act. That’s honestly the weirdest part for me, is the uncertainty.”
“The funky thing about the NFL draft process is, he’d almost be better off not being drafted than being drafted first,” Carl Williams told Schube. “The system is completely backwards. . . . The way the system is constructed, you go to the worst possible situation. The worst possible team, the worst organization in the league — because of their desire for parity — gets the first pick. So it’s the gift and the curse.”
With the caveat, as Carl Williams said, that Caleb gets “two shots at the apple. . . . So if there’s not a good situation, the truth is, he can come back to school.”
But the situation in 2025 might not be any better, since once again the worst team will earn the top spot in the draft. So instead of running from it, why not take charge of it?
Caleb Williams has more control than he currently realizes. He can tell the team holding the first overall pick, “Don’t bother.” And he can back it up with action, refusing to sign a contract if the team holding the first pick takes him.
Caleb Williams wrestles with the "completely backwards" nature of the draft - NBC Sports