NFL Draft 2013: 5 Things I Learned

4. The NFL Has Soured On USC Quarterbacks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHjiiKk881A John David Booty. Mark Sanchez, Rob Johnson, Matt Lienart, Matt Cassell, Todd Marinovich, Carson Palmer, Rodney Peete. 2 Heismans, 2 national Championships. 4 first round draft picks. Guess where they all went to college? USC. Guess how may Super Bowls they have won collectively? Zero. Only Carson Palmer is a bona fide starter in the NFL, and even then that's tenuous at best, as he hasn't had a good season in nearly 4 years after bitching his way out of Cincinnati and a disastrous stint in Oakland to quarterback hell in Arizona. Booty and Johnson (despite a then record free agent contract at the time) never amounted to anything in the NFL, Matt Lienart is waiting tables somewhere (OkK, he is a backup in Oakland, his third NFL team), Matt Cassel, somehow turned being a damn backup USC quarterback into a big contract with the Chiefs before crashing down to earth and now is a back up to Christian Ponder in Minnesota. And Sanchez, as I discussed previously, is a another butt fumble away from being done on New York. So now comes Matt Barclay- a decorated 4 year starter, that at one point was predicted to be a first round pick had he come out as a junior, with all the glow that a USC quarterback comes with. However, he stayed in school, got hurt and USC had a 7-6 record. Even so, this year, there were rumbles that he still might go in the first round in a quarterback dry draft that had the task of following a 2012 draft that saw the likes of three super stars in Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, Russell Wilson, as well as two starters in Brandon Wheeden and Ryan Tannehill go in the first round. But Alas, Barclay wasn't even a second day pick, he tumbled all the way to the 4th round and even then was selected after 2 projects (FSU's EJ Emmanuel and Geno Smith) and a full round after an actual stork disguised as a QB, Mike Glennon from North Carolina State. Teams are finally realizing that USC QBS are a product of hype and name recognition. Barclay, like many USC QBs before was basically groomed to be an NFL quarterback from the moment of conception. I remember watching a show on the NFL Network called "High School's Greatest Rivalries", and one episode featured Mater Dei High School (the same high school and USC QB and gargantuan NFL bust Todd Marinovich) and guess who was the young QB getting all the face time? Barclay. In High school he was already being paraded around in front of cameras and the main stream sports media. With that comes a sense of entitlement and a lot of pressure that simply does not equate to NFL success. I'm rooting for Barclay- he has a n NFL ready skill set, but how will he respond to being a back up to Michael Vick and how will he fit into Chip Kelly's high octane offense? Time will tell, but don't be surprised if Barclay ends up on the heap of highly touted former USC quarterbacks that litter the NFLS backups and has beens.