Be Wary of the Hype

Morris Claiborne situation reminds us that NFL draft is not an exact science

When former first-round draft pick Morris Claiborne left the Dallas Cowboys facility in the midst of a tantrum after being demoted due to poor play, it would be easy to blame the situation on yet another misjudgment of talent by Jerry Jones. Jones always wants to make a splash with a glitzy player and will forgo the boring, but necessary foundation of a team in order to grab new and shiny toys.

This time, however, Jones wasn’t alone in his glowing recommendation of Claiborne.

NFL “experts” had a rather high opinion of the corner out of LSU during the 2012 draft. Mel Kiper Jr. of ESPN fame tweeted that Claiborne was a top 10 pick on his board. Mike Mayock, the NFL Network’s draft guru, gushed that “Morris Claiborne is a special corner. He’s got the best ball skills of any corner coming out in the last several years. This is a rare athlete.”

In fact, the only red flag about Claiborne was a report that he had bombed the Wonderlic test, scoring a disturbing 4 out of 50 on the cognitive intelligence exam. No one thought that rumor was an issue in terms of Claiborne’s being able to succeed at the NFL level.

Today, it looks like everyone missed on the assessment of Claiborne. He routinely gets torched on coverage, he has trouble staying healthy, and he has rarely flashed the tremendous ball skills that had Jerry Jones comparing him to Hall of Famer Deion Sanders.

Claiborne is not an isolated case when it comes to the misjudging a prospect’s ability to play at the NFL level. In the 2012 draft alone, there were supposedly six “can’t miss” players who were destined to be stars in the NFL:

Andrew Luck, QB, Stanford
Robert Griffin III, QB, Baylor
Matt Kalil, OT, USC
Trent Richardson, RB, Alabama
Justin Blackmon, WR, Oklahoma State
Morris Claiborne, CB, LSU

Out of those six, only Andrew Luck has panned out the way NFL insiders claimed he would. One player out of six. That’s only a slightly better score than Claiborne allegedly got on his Wonderlic test.

Robert Griffin III had a promising rookie season, but he has been sidetracked by injuries and now a quarterback controversy in Washington. Matt Kalil starts in Minnesota, but has been beaten routinely for sacks and is under fire.

Trent Richardson lasted one season in Cleveland, then was traded to Indianapolis, where he has looked pedestrian. That’s still more successful than Justin Blackmon, who isn’t even currently playing due to a drug suspension and multiple arrests.

The moral of this story is that there are far too many factors to consider when scouting NFL prospects to effectively — and consistently — judge their transition to the next level. For every hit (one scout had Luke Kuechly in his top six; Kuechly was the NFL defensive MVP last season), there is a miss (that same scout had Ryan Tannehill ranked in the top six, and now Tannehill could possibly be benched in Miami).

Although Jerry Jones could be blamed for the Claiborne debacle, it’s not because Jones misjudged the talent. The only thing Jones could be blamed for in this situation is giving up a first- and second-round draft choice in order to move up and select one player.

Considering the percentage of players actually turning out the way scouts thought they would, it’s probably best to take as many shots in the draft as possible. Maybe you’ll even hit on a star.

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Texas Touchdown

This new interactive exhibit captures a century of Texas football history

Photo courtesy of Dallas Cowboys

Football season is just weeks away, and a new online exhibit from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image explores more than a century of the sport's history in Texas.

Football season is just weeks away, and before Friday night lights return and college stadiums roar back to life, Texans can get an early kickoff with Game Film: Texas Football Culture in Motion, a new interactive online exhibit. The project from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image celebrates more than a century of the state's high school, college, and professional football history.

The free digital exhibit uses archival game film, home movies, television broadcasts, and local news coverage to explore how football is woven into the fabric of Texas life. Rather than presenting a collection of videos, the archive has curated an interactive experience that lets visitors discover the people, traditions, innovations, and defining moments behind the state's football culture.

Game Film encourages exploration through interactive features. Visitors can follow a timeline of football milestones spanning high school, college, and professional football, click through an interactive state map highlighting archival footage available from schools and programs across the state, or browse themed collections devoted to Friday night culture and fan traditions.

This project, unveiled July 31, was curated by Katharine Austin, a longtime curator at the Texas Archive, as part of the Texas Film Commission's Texas Moving Image Archive Program.

The interactive timeline traces the sport from its earliest days through the modern era, spotlighting milestones including:

1894: the beginning of the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry
1900: the first Red River Rivalry
1914: the formation of the Southwest Conference
1921: the UIL's first state football championship
1938: TCU quarterback Davey O'Brien becoming the first player from a Texas college to win the Heisman Trophy
1959: the founding of the Houston Oilers
1960: the Dallas Cowboys joining the NFL
1987: SMU's NCAA "death penalty"
1996: Drew Brees leading Westlake High School to its first state football championship
1999: Houston being awarded the NFL expansion franchise that became the Texans

Many later entries include original television reports and archival footage from the events themselves.

An interactive state map offers another way to explore the collection, highlighting schools, colleges, and professional teams represented in the archive.

One click reveals a silent film of Austin High School's 20-7 victory over Sunset High in the 1942 UIL state championship, while another captures Timpson High School's homecoming celebration in East Texas, complete with parade floats, marching bands, and community festivities. Other sections spotlight Friday night traditions, Darrell Royal's wishbone offense, Bill Yeoman's Veer defense, behind-the-scenes stories from the Houston Oilers, and the invention of the quarterback flak jacket.

Game Film is the latest in a series of interactive exhibits from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image, joining projects including Women on the Move, Journey to the Moon Through Texas, Meet Me in San Antonio, La Frontera Fluid, and Breaking News: Rescuing the First Draft of History.

The archive's broader collection and the nonprofit both accept public donations of historic films, videotapes, photographs, and other moving-image materials, helping preserve Texas stories for future generations.

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