Dan Pompei at the National Football Post has this interesting comment on the spring ratings amongst the players who were possibilities for the supplemental draft:
“Cornerback Janoris Jenkins was the highest rated cornerback among all senior prospects and was rated one of the top prospects at any position. His 6.9 grade was well above the 6.5 given to Alfonzo Dennard of Nebraska, the No. 2 ranked corner. After his dismissal from Florida, Jenkins decided to enroll at North Alabama rather than enter the supplemental draft.
“Michael Floyd also decided to forego the supplemental draft. The wide receiver is returning to Notre Dame despite the fact that he was the highest rated receiver among seniors to be. His 6.5 grade put him ahead of Texas A&M’s Jeff Fuller and Wisconsin’s Nick Toon.
“Terrelle Pryor of Ohio State did decide to enter the supplemental draft, but the rankings indicate he could have used another year in school. Nine quarterbacks were rated ahead of him.”
In my opinion all of these players made the wrong decision, at least financially. As Pompei points out, a lot will change in terms of these ratings over the next year. What that tells me is that Jenkins and especially Floyd have nowhere to go but down. Off-field priorities aside, Pryor on the other hand could have really used an extra year to boost his stock.
But Pryor’s real error in my opinion was made years ago when he decided to go to Ohio State to begin with. I held at the time and still believe that the right decision would have been to take advantage of his physical talents in a spread offense. Instead he chose to go to a pro style offense at Ohio State and (somewhat arrogantly) look ahead to a pro career which was years in the future and which might nor might not ever materialize.
The question to ask is this. If Pryor had taken advantage of his natural talents in a spread offense, would he still be tenth on the list of quarterbacks? I’m not so sure.