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My opinion on this varies. 1) First off, let's not act like they bring no value at all. They're attractive and they're nice to look at in between plays, which is worth something. Playing eye tag with cheerleaders is a tradition on every level and a football game without cheerleaders is a little weird. If they brought nothing to the table then they wouldn't be at the games at all. Nobody forces girls to do it. If you have a problem with "society encouraging it", then that's a different argument. 2) They are technically independent contractors, but they could just as easily be employees. If you're paying them, then you need to pay them fairly. The NFL has done a good job distancing themselves from this by hiring contractors instead of having them on the payroll ("The Giants respect women" LMAO what an amazing PR team). 3) I know a few former Jills and girls who have tried out for the Jills. They don't do it for the money or as a job. They do it to be called a Jill. There's a social prestige that comes with that. More likes on Facebook, more jealous looks from girls, more male attention, more promotion gigs on Chippewa. There's a reason the pay is so low yet the demand remains high. There is plenty of value there for the girls outside money. 4) My thought process on this is that the actual job is not degrading to women because the girls enjoy the benefits that come with it, otherwise they would not do it. Nobody forces them to do it. However, the contractors seem to be on a power trip because they know how valuable a spot on the Jills is and how much sh*t the girls are willing to eat to get it. That said, as long as they are getting paid at least minimum wage and they are not being overworked or breaking labor laws, let them do what they want.

I know this is really unpopular, but I'm a big believer in drafting a QB every year. Every invention in history has been accomplished by trial and error experimenting. The odds of you being successful are FAR lower when you select a QB every 5 years, than if you select one every year. Similar to you trying only 1 idea every 5 years, than 1 idea every year. If the value of a good QB is X times higher than any other position on the field (and we have a mostly stacked team in every other position), I see no reason to pass on a Petty/Grayson/Hundley in the 3rd, 4th, or 5th round every year. At that point you can cut Tuel and have 4 promising QBs face off and you cut the one who shows the least potential or provides the worst results. Run the QBs like an A/B test until you find a winner. I see spending 4th round picks as similar to spending $100 in a marketing campaign to find the best advertisement. To make money, you need to spend money and to get good QBs, you need to use draft picks. This way you go into every draft saying "OK, we're taking a QB, who's the best guy at the best draft position". Now you end up taking Pat White, Colt Mccoy, Andy Dalton, and then Russell Wilson. Now boom, you have a franchise QB and a good young backup QB in Dalton you can trade for a high pick. In exchange this would have cost us Eric Wood, Alex Carrington, Aaron Williams, and T.J Graham. Are those 4 guys worth more than Russell Wilson and Andy Dalton?

I would cut Brown AND Dixon to keep Fred for one more year. Those guys are easily replaceable, Fred is not.

What I heard somewhere is that he wants a bigger contract wherever he gets traded. That might explain the lack of interest.

When we're down 5 in the 4th quarter against the Patriots on 4th and 9, and Bryce Brown gets stopped 2 yards short, we'll regret we cut Fred Jackson. That's all I have to say.

Watched the Texas Tech tape. He's tall and long. Smooth runner although I agree, not a speedster. Made a couple highlight reel catches. Did it against solid competition. The draftniks question his toughness and I did see him run out of bounds one play where he should have stiff armed the guy Fred Jackson in Chicago style. Crappy QB throwing to him so he knows how to adjust. Interesting small school receiver. Definitely worth a 7th round pick.

On the topic of Darby's physical toughness, I see some people denying it, but I think there's some merit. It's pretty clear he avoids hits when he doesn't have to, let's his teammates do the tackling, comes in from the side instead of squaring up. It's easy to see why some people would call him a b*tch when it comes to the run game. But you also need to understand that he's one of the smallest guys on the field at all times. He's doing what he can to avoid injuries. Would I like to see some more ballsy physical plays, yes, but overall I think he's good enough to be a strong player. The speed and quickness more than makes up for it. The hands....we'll see if it's just mental.

You know, beyond the overbearing pessimism, the self-righteousness, and just the general "I think I'm smarter than everybody" vibe he always gave across, I still felt like he was knowledgeable and had the integrity to do some TBN level research before he opened his mouth. When he wrote that tweet about John Miller yesterday, I went and watched whatever videos were available of him. I admit I don't follow the draft much but even when I did there were hundreds of players I never heard of. So it's OK not to know about some of these guys. But I watched the tape and came away with the general impression of "this guy is pretty good". Then I thought about what Jerry Sullivan said when he clearly never watched a second of game film on the guy. Look, I get that TBN pressures him to tweet. I get that people want real-time reporting with world class research and knowledge, and that's just not possible, so there's going to be a trade-off. But at what point in his career did Sullivan get so "lost" as to just create pessimism out of nearly thin air without doing even a second of research. I get the pressures, but when did he decide that was OK to do? He reminds me of Paul Newman as a lawyer in The Verdict giving business cards out at funerals of people he doesn't know. Integrity long gone. All it shows is his instant eye for finding that dark cloud, as you said. Now that I know he no longer bothers to do any research, it's tough for me to have any more respect for his journalism. At least whatever was left. If the journalists are no longer doing the research, who's left to do it?

They only watch one game and base their opinion on that. They should also watch the UCF tape. The kid can play.

I'm far from a draft scout, but I watched both videos of him on DraftBreakdown.com and I liked him. Steady, strong, great at run blocking, eager, not lazy.

I feel one of the best resources available to fans in order to get a decent feel for a QB's personality is Gruden Camp. If you go back to past episodes and rewatch the QBs who made it, you start to see trends. 1. They are dominant and gain the respect of Gruden in one on one conversation. People think Gruden is just chewing the scenery but I think he messes with the QBs on purpose to see how they respond. The best example of this was Cam Newton. You'll find the biggest busts are the ones that automatically become submissive to Gruden, like Gabbert or this year Petty. This is not a knock normally since Gruden is a very dominant guy, but as a QB you need to be one of the most dominant guys in the huddle in order to command attention and respect. To add more to this, Russell Wilson is not a dominant personality per se, but you'll notice he was completely unaffected by Gruden's. Luck was the same way. They were not intimidated by him at all. No trouble holding eye contact. You see that this year with Winston and Hundley. 2. Fast processing skills and decisiveness. The best was clearly Andrew Luck. Knew every single passing concept instantaneously. No "umms" or pauses, just immediately started writing on the board. You also saw his decisiveness in little things like "let's do this in trips formation". Gruden didn't tell him which formation or even tell him to pick one, he just immediately chose one. All these little things come through on the field. Grayson on the other hand clearly takes a few moments to think, says "umm" before doing anything and just overall clearly second guesses himself a bit. QBs need to process fast and make immediate decisions. 3. Talking to the players in the huddle. At the end of this video http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=12469292Hundley is telling 3 receivers what to do in the huddle. You can see immediately that he's the alpha male there but the way he talks, his firmness, his command of their attention, and how two of the guys look down when he talks. The players must be ready to give everything for their QB, and they won't do that for a QB they don't take seriously. Going by this, Hundley and Winston made the best impression on me. Winston took over the show completely with his charisma, but Hundley was just very eager and confident. Last year out of all the guys I was impressed by Derek Carr for his unwavering confidence and self-assureness, and he turned out to be one of the best. We have access to all the game film and the physical abilities are broken down by everyone. Everyone agrees intangibles are the most important thing. Well I think Hundley's the guy for us if we take one this year. I'm actually kind of hoping we avoid Petty and Grayson.

Just be creative. Give them difficult computer games and see how long they keep trying compared to the average person. It's really not that difficult to come up with ideas. They have computer tests for ADD, so concentration tests would be easy to do. What's the pain in trying? The NBA is open-minded, why do we have to be stubborn about changing the tiniest things? You are arguing semantics. Of course, they are all related. I didn't exactly write out a thesis on this before writing my post, simply threw out important characteristics off the top of my head. Nobody is determined at everything, but an NFL football player needs to be determined to be a successful player in order to be successful, do you agree or disagree with that? If you were a physics major and were not determined to do well on a test, then I'm going to pass on you during the physics draft. You are also beginning to grasp that if you are not interested in something, you won't be determined. Testing their actual interest in having a successful career would be another solid characteristic to test. See we're getting somewhere. However, even if you did want to pass the physics test, but you were prone to play video games while you studied and make other poor choices, I would want a way to test that. To make it simpler, if you wanted to do something, I'd like a way to test how likely you are to achieve it, and how much adversity you are willing to go through to achieve it. I believe that's what separates the success stories in the NFL, from the busts. Just like it separates the success stories in every other field on Earth, to the other guys. How could we create a combine test to sniff out a Justin Blackmon type who screws up a bunch of times, gets repeatedly suspended, and then decides to just quit the NFL rather than work hard and try again? Does that sound like the kind of guy who quits after a lot of adversity? It does to me. What about a Derrick Rose type who keeps coming back from injury and not giving up mentally and still playing at a high level? Are these "worse ideas than the Wonderlic"? I really really really really really disagree with you on this being a bad idea. I just don't think you understand how important these characteristics are to a professional athlete. FAR more important than some tricky multiple choice logic puzzles. Not that the Wonderlic is useless, I just think the flaw is having that be the only mental test they give them (besides interview questions). When the NFL bust rate is as high as it is, it means there is something fundamentally missing in professional scouting. They have absolutely mastered watching film and physical measurements, but are absolutely clueless when deciding who will make it and who won't. What other industry has a bigger strike out rate than professional sports during the draft? Especially with the time and effort they put into it. There are major discoveries to be made here, and frankly we're arguing about some 50 question IQ test that is proven to tell us nothing but who's book smart and who's a little dumb at school. Why not test for everything we possibly can and then look back on the correlations? Add an extra day to the combine where they do nothing but different mental aptitude tests. One day we'll look back and start seeing patterns.

If they're going to give a personality test to predict future success, intelligence should only be 1 of many different testing variables. They need to test for persistence, determination, positive or negative attitudes, expectations of success or failure, confidence, decision making in stressful situations, desire to succeed, ambition, concentration, etc. No wonder there are so many busts. They could cut that number in half just by testing for the things I listed above. For example, will power is far more important than intelligence. Persistance and faith in your ability is nearly equally important to skill and intelligence.

Good for him. Seems like an intelligent investment.

That's the one thing I don't like about Whaley. He puts what makes him look good ahead of what's best for the team sometimes. I suspect that was the root of many of the Marrone problems.

Sometimes you just have to look at the big picture.

When I watch the show I'm less interested in Gruden and more interested in the QB's personality and how the QB interacts with Gruden, rather than visa versa. For example, Cam Newton was extremely confident and even authoritative around Gruden. That was the only time I saw a QB who didn't automatically bow his head to Gruden. On the other hand, I felt like Gruden was having fun messing with Blaine Gabbert. Look how those QBs turned out. Not saying it's the most important thing, but I feel like it's a potential predictor of future success. Another guy who impressed me last year was Derek Carr with his steady, yet not cocky, confidence. Again, it paid off on the field. Character is very important indicator in the QB position, but again there's always exceptions.

I have a good feeling about Harvin. He's been underperforming by his standards the last few years and from what I've heard from Pegula, Rex, the WR coach, now Harvin himself, and our loaded receiving corp, I think he really might breakout this year. He could have visited other places, flashier places, but for some unexplained reason signed with us on his first trip despite reports of his inner circle trying to persuade him to visit other teams. Something about us appealed to him. I keep thinking about Pegula telling the story about Percy having a long conversation with Pegula's daughter on the private jet. Usually hearsay from owners and management is BS but sometimes when you read between the lines you can get a feel for things. My intuition is Percy has matured a lot and is ready to be a professional. Percy might know it himself and that's why he said what he said. Maybe he signed with us not just because of Rex's charisma, but because he wanted a quiet place to put his head down and get his career back on track. I've been totally nailing fantasy picks the last few years based on my gut so hopefully I'm right about Harvin this year.

I mean, I agree with the mistakes point. Knowledge is a necessary component for confidence. Anything that will improve Manuel's knowledge will make him more confident. However confidence does not always lead to leadership. It's a bit of a Venn Diagram between those two qualities. But it's true players in the huddle are more likely to listen to you when they see you doing your job correctly. I think the OP came to the conclusion that Cassel learned how to be more of a leader from watching Brady for several years, and he will bring what he learned to Buffalo and it will hopefully rub off on Manuel. There's a lot of speculation here, but I'd argue reasonable speculation. It's become a bit of a cliche but Cassel will raise the floor on the team's QB position. Tough to prove all the OP's points but I still generally agree with him. Manuel could use mentorship from a veteran QB and Cassel brings good qualities to the fold that Orton might not have had.

I've met both kinds of people in the workforce. I assure you the ones that are afraid of losing their jobs to the younger people eventually do. That karma comes back around.

I thought the OP showed original insight, which is so rare on message boards I personally believe it should be respected whether you agree with it or not. Maybe I just overvalue original insight. I took from the OP the reminder of how valuable learning from a solid pro can be. I've gone into many businesses with no mentor and made so many dumb mistakes and gone down so many wrong roads that I never would have went on if I had somebody to shadow or ask questions to. Mentors give you direction in your field because they've been there. This is not just pertaining to the QB position in the NFL, but to nearly every scenario in life. The OP's point about the value of a mentor is inarguable to me, even if a few exceptional QBs made it without guidance. I can tell you that I ended up making it in a few of those businesses through trial by fire, but it was a lot more difficult than it had to be. It's one thing to be told what to do by some coaches on the sideline, and another to watch a guy go out there and actually do it. There were definitely things Manuel could have learned from Orton and I'm sure he did. He would have to be stubborn not to and he has never come off that way to me. One thing Orton lacked seemed to be character and courage, and character is something that Manuel seems to be great in already. Courage can be taught, I've seen cowards turn into fearless people with my own eyes. I'm not calling Manuel a coward by any means, but he can definitely use some courage to throw the ball into tight places.

Dalton had a good first two years for a QB, especially a 2nd rounder. People were really optimistic on him and now all of a sudden he has a bad year and this "Dalton is the epitome of an average QB" narrative came out and now it's supposedly a fact. Recent history shows that these "Player X SUCKZZZZ" narratives have sometimes very little basis in fact. Remember when nobody would touch Randy Moss with a 10 foot pole when he was in Oakland? I remember fans saying "I don't care if NE gets him". That's a true story. I see no reason why a QB that has been to the playoffs several times is not good enough for the Bills. Zero. Also, I live in Miami and watched Tannehill lots of times. He's going to be a top 7-10 QB in this league for a long time, probably starting in 2015.

This is a really good point. However, even though those guys are going to be on the latter part of their primes, the rules are setup so that they last far longer than they have in the past. Expect to see Roethlisberger, Rivers, Manning, and even Brady for another 3-5 years.

Can you give some recommendations? I'm serious, there's so many hacks I don't know who to read to get original insight.

Good point. You're right. The previous poster just made such an absolute negative statement that I had to say something.