Daily Links: Rough Upbringing in Little Rock
Posted on March 31st, 2008 by Bassett
- Rich Cimini writes an excellent bio piece on Darren McFadden,
- The bond crisis could be causing issues for the Jets new stadium.
- Mack Rosenberg expounds on Jerry Jones’ statements on moving up, and what it means to the Jets.
Filed under: Daily Links
After reading that article, it really puts doubts that he can handle everything that will be given him.
He will be fine if he learns to just walk away. If he has the right people around him to help him walk away.
And why does Mini look like she just won the lottery in that picture?
This is a tough one. We’ve seen many players fail at the pro level after striking it rich but failing to leave the loyal friends who also happen to be hoods behind, the best example being Vick. For McFadden its got to be even tougher, you can’t ask him to walk away from family, but in this article we learned that out of 11 siblings at least 3 are less than desirable, two (rival) gang members and one crack dealer (who would even sell to his own drug addicted mother). Its one thing when your chosen entourage contains some undesirables, thats just poor judgement, but you can CHOOSE your entourage, you can’t choose your family.
Having said that I don’t think this precludes the jets from taking him, first of all the overall assessment seems to be his is a stand up guy that has a good moral compass that has only gone astray a few times, coming from where he has I would submit that should be looked at as a positive, not a negative, how many of us, coming from an environment like that would have gotten into quite a bit more trouble? Second, we know this about him going in, so by surrounding him with good people as a support system right off the bat (love the C-Mart idea) you can stave off problems before they arise, and I don’t think he needs a baby sitter, just someone he can trust to give him good advice. The biggest problem with Vick was that he never fully embraced his new environment and thus kept his secret life just that secret, by fooling everyone with a nice guy persona he had developed, no one sought to help him because no one thought he needed help. With McFadden we know the potential perils going in, as long as you surround him with a good supporting cast he should succeed.
To those that say leave this mess for someone else, I want more of a sure thing to invest all that money in at #6 all I can say is who is the last player on the Jets that had that extra gear (witness the fact that in his 4.33 40 the second 20 (1.80) was faster than the 1st 20 (2.53))? Whatever name(s) you come up with for the that list I’m sure we could all agree thats its been awhile, I for one am still willing take what I believe is a small risk on a game-changer for the offense.