If you can't drive, you don't get a license. If you can't pass the bar, you don't get to be a lawyer. So why is Bill Polian still paid to offer scouting reports on Lamar Jackson?
In one of the most infamous NFL Draft embarrassments of all time, former NFL executive Polian panned Jackson as he was about to enter the league, saying on ESPN - with great assuredness - that the Louisville star and Heisman Trophy-winner would never be able to play quarterback in the NFL and should immediately switch to receiver.
Said Polian: "This guy is incredible in the open field... (but he's) short, and kind of slight, and clearly not the thrower that the other guys are. So I would say, don't wait to make that change (to receiver). Don't ... wait until you're 29 to make the change."
The remarks struck many as strange; did Polian not know that the 6-1 Baker Mayfield, who he ranked above the 6-2, 210-pound Jackson, was shorter? The remarks struck others as racially-based and decades out of touch.
And in the end, maybe no "scouting mind'' has ever been more wrong about a player. In just his second NFL season, Jackson - drafted by the Baltimore Ravens at the end of Round 1 - led the NFL in touchdown passes ("he's not a thrower'') and won the league's MVP award ... at age 22.
Now he's 27. And he's probably going to win another MVP as he tries to top the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game on Sunday.
And Polian is back ... trying to offer up advice on how to stop Lamar. And guess what?
"Keep him in the pocket,'' Polian said on SiriusXM NFL Radio this week. "Make him beat you from the pocket.''
Um ... isn't that yet again suggesting that Jackson - who this year ... and threw for ... more TDs - "isn't a thrower''?
Polian conceded that Jackson might win that way, but returned back to his familiar well, adding, "But if we're playing them, I'm gonna say to the coaches: 'You have to keep Lamar in the pocket at all costs.’”
Maybe if the Lamar-led Ravens win to advance to the Super Bowl, critics like Polian will be silenced ... though given the fact that the Hall-of-Fame exec has been preaching the same nonsense for seven years suggests otherwise.
But we'll offer a suggestion here: Next time the subject of scouting Lamar Jackson comes up, why doesn't Bill Polian simply offer to sit this one out?
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