Day 195

Fresh Start_195: A first round ticket back home
After Interior Linebacker Reuben Foster was sent home yesterday from the NFL Combine. Foster was sent home for getting into an altercation with a hospital worker in Indianapolis. The NFL is saying that he is being sent home for “personal reasons” and Foster declined to comment on the matter. Now this brings up two major points about Foster as a person. The first one is, what will Reuben Foster be like as an NFL player if he goes on the road and mixes in with the wrong crowd. What happens in the off season? Could he be a distraction from a team like Adam Jones or Aqib Talib who are talented players but are just distractions for their team.

Foster didn’t even participate in the combine so teams will have to go off of his pro-day stats that he puts up back at Alabama on March 8th.  He is coming off his senior season where he racked up 94 total tackles, had 4 sacks, and a big National Championship game against Clemson where he had 12 total tackles and a sack. Foster has the ability to be a good quality player, maybe a Pro Bowler if he improves on his game. However, he is going to have to really impress scouts if he wants to be selected in the first round. Skipping out on the combine due to off the field related issues will put up a red flag for some teams about taking him in the first round and maybe even the second. What Foster is going to have to do is prove to the teams in the league that this was an isolated incident inside of a common habit. Foster has played at Alabama and head coach Nick Saban has a history of having a no-nonsense program so for me it would be hard to believe that Reuben Foster would be a head case off the field if he hasn’t had an issue at all in his college career at Alabama. That would just be hard for me to believe in a media saturated landscape that has been growing even more in the past couple of years.

But, if Foster is a difficult player to deal with off the field, this brings up an issue that I believe will affect the NFL in the coming years. I think teams should have a department of people that can help players off the field. I haven’t heard of any team having people dedicated to just helping players off the field in the off season and throughout the season. If a team focuses on the players and help them iron out the issues that can come from transitioning from college to the NFL. The people should be introduced in the interviews at the combine and should help the players throughout their time with that specific organization. There is no question that Reuben Foster has the talent to play on Sunday’s for many years to come, but what he did this past week in an Indianapolis hospital may cost him some serious dollars in the upcoming draft. This will also make some of the teams that have him high on their boards pass on Foster completely. I can hope for the best for a player like Foster, but it’s all up to him and the people he surrounds himself with.
Sources:(espn.com, nfl.com, al.com)

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