Draft Prospect Lashes Out At Own School

[theFRANCHISE]

Oklahoma wide receiver Malcolm Kelly, a projected late-1st-round pick in the 2008 NFL Draft, lashed out at his own school after a disappointing pro day performance.

The junior WR blamed his 4.68 40-time on being forced to run on artificial turf after initial arrangements to run on AstroTurf were changed at the last minute; AstroTurf is the preferred surface of NFL scouts, as it is the most common playing surface in the league.

Kelly also criticized OU's medical staff for underplaying his partial quadriceps tear as a deep thigh bruise, after allegedly telling the staff he was in worse pain than diagnosed.

Article: NFL.com

My thoughts:

Although I understand that a few seconds shaved off a 40-time could be the difference between a few million dollars and a few draft slots, Kelly still showed poor judgment in publicly criticizing his school like that.

I know he already addressed the "surface-is-a-surface" argument, but I still firmly believe that a player worthy of a 1st-round draft pick must be able to perform, regardless of the obstacles he may face. I understand he's fighting through an injury, and I understand the importance of surfaces in a player's mobility, but the best athletes are able to flat-out perform regardless.

He shouldn't have used the surface as a crutch, as he's not telling the scouts anything they didn't already know. And blaming the medical staff for not properly assessing the extent of his injury is a low-class move, because again, that's something the scouts likely also have taken into account.

After all, this isn't the first walk in the park for most of these scouts, and they've likely dealt with injured draft prospects before.

In my opinion, Malcolm Kelly's words hurt his draft stock more than his pro day performance, and I hope that he gets his act together when he gets drafted and shows a bit more maturity, or this could be another Chris Henry in the making.

[Sub-Zero]

of course, its his schools fault he ran those not so out of this world 40 times! it was all a scheme, playing off his injury that was more serious than what was diagnosed, and switching the surface at the last moment. Genius! No seriously speaking, Kelly is as competitive as anyone and probably didn't care too much at first about the surface switch. But when he put up those 40 times, he probably felt his draft stock slip faster than Britney Spears and being the young and competitive cat that he is, his knee jerk reaction was to place the blame on his school.

Personally I hate measuring a players performance through 40 times to me its the most deceiving evaluation tool ever. But if it hurts Kelly's stock enough to knock him down to say about early 2nd round (highly doubtful but I can dream!) and we take him, then I can't be mad....at all He would fit in pretty well, not only is he an exceptional athlete but he's a fiery leader and he's got some mad freestyle skillz!

Imagine him and other Ravens getting in a cypher, now that would be some great footage!

[ragnorok99]

Interesting. I can see his point, but he went about it the wrong way--plus, he's not going to be able to use this argument if he has a bad game on an artificial turf or grass field. That won't fly.

I wonder if he'll have another oppurtunity to do the 40 in front of scouts. If not, I still don't think this will drop him out of the 2nd round.

[Raven07]

yea very interesting read and i did hear something of this sometime yesterday from somewhere. (forget exactly where at)

but every player/draft prospect wants to impress and wants to make the most of his performance and if any changes occur....especially within the "last minute" of course thats going to create some tension, and some emotions will be heard....this is a prime example of doing just that....and thus he feels he didnt truly get a "complete" or "fair" work out on his pro day. which in some retro-spect is understandable, seeing how the Astro Turf is the surface scouts and players want above all others. to have it change to a new surface...of course there would be changes inperformance.....and thus marking his emotions.

[FerrariFan87]

I personally feel bad for the kid as two-tenths of a second are probably going to cost him a couple million bucks =/