# What went wrong with Matt Leinart? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [September 6, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840 "2010-09-06T21:50:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Hung\_Mung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/41 "2010-09-11T13:45:57Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > > [@Jackmannii](#): > > > > Bart Starr may be the poster child for late-blooming quarterback stardom (he was second or third string for several years with the Packers). > > Quite a few, actually. Aaron Rodgers is the poster boy, but there was also “Captain Comeback” Steve DeBerg, Steve Young, Elvis Grbac, Mitch Gannon, etc. Mitch Gannon? ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2010, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/42 "2010-09-11T13:53:01Z")
> [@Hung\_Mung](#): > > > [@Superhal](#): > > > > Quite a few, actually. Aaron Rodgers is the poster boy, but there was also “Captain Comeback” Steve DeBerg, Steve Young, Elvis Grbac, Mitch Gannon, etc. > > Mitch Gannon? Yeah, you know-- Mitch Gannon. Used to play with Moe Montana and Stan Marino. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/43 "2010-09-12T01:44:51Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > I heard Petros Papadakis on the radio the other morning (former USC player, and now sportscaster, covers USC football) > Anyway he was asked about Leinart. In short his answer was that ML has the biggest sense of entitlement that PP had ever come across, and was in general an all around pretty much a schmuck. > Sounds like his cutting was a self inflicted wound to me. How can anyone walk into a pro locker room and feel a sense of entitlement? Everybody is bigger and faster. You need to taught like a child how to step up to the next level. Rookies get paid way too much. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/44 "2010-09-12T03:57:12Z")
All it takes is an ego as big as the outdoors. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/45 "2010-09-12T08:00:26Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > I think a big, under-appreciated issue with Leinart and a bunch of QBs in similar situations is that they simply got rusty. Leinart was taken as a potentially NFL ready QB, most saw him as a game manager and leader as opposed to a rocket armed stud, but a very adequate starting NFL QB early on. He started a ton of games for USC and was in a rhythm. In his rookie season he started 10 games in relief and posted solid numbers for a rookie QB, he made plenty of mistakes, but he played as well as most rookies do. > > Then Warner got things going and Leinart spent the bulk of the next 4 years holding a clipboard. Few players at any position can remain sharp when you spend nearly 4 years not playing or practicing, and ones that never had a chance to really acclimate to the NFL game in the first place have almost no chance. Backing up Warner basically ruined any potential for growth he had. These guys need to prepare and play or else they lose it. How many QBs can you think of who waited this long to get a starting gig did anything with it? There’s a certain chicken and the egg argument in which guys that wait that long do so for good reason, but the Warner issue is an isolated case. We may never know how good Leinart could have been had he have been playing and growing back in 2007. Generally speaking, the longer a guy waits on the bench the better his start ends up being. Chad Pennington, Philip Rivers and Aaron Rodgers all hit the ground running because of the years they had riding the pine. Leinart sucked from the beginning. I remember at one point he went through the humiliation of being in a platoon-QB situation with Warner, where Warner took over in the red zone. That’s a whole mountain of suck, getting pulled in the middle of drives like that. And it’s not like Kurt Warner was Peyton Manning. His incompetence lost him his job in New York despite a winning record. Something like 30 sacks in 4 games gave Eli the job. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/46 "2010-09-12T08:11:28Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > last few Heisman Qbs winners > Bradford > Tebow > Troy Smith > Leinart > Jason White > Carson Palmer > Weinke Of these, only Palmer and Leinart were drafted high enough and have been in the league long enough to really matter. Palmer turned out to be good, and Leinart didn’t. No real pattern there. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/47 "2010-09-12T16:12:43Z")
> [@treis](#): > > > [@gonzomax](#): > > > > last few Heisman Qbs winners > > Bradford > > Tebow > > Troy Smith > > Leinart > > Jason White > > Carson Palmer > > Weinke > > Of these, only Palmer and Leinart were drafted high enough and have been in the league long enough to really matter. Palmer turned out to be good, and Leinart didn’t. No real pattern there. The point and the pattern is that the ones the press touted the most failed. That out of 14 QBs few had success in the pro game. A guy like Flute had to go Canadian and prove himself over and over. But Boston College is not USC or Texas. They walk in with a winners label and flounder. None of them came in and lit up the pros. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/48 "2010-09-12T16:39:11Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > (I’ll remember this the next time you make the exact opposite argument about pitchers in a baseball thread…) 🙂 > [@gonzomax](#): > > The difference in baseball from a last place team to a pennant contender is one game in 5. That is not much. Big programs in football win 80 percent or more of their regular season games. They live off mismatches. They get to schedule cupcakes . Irrelevant. The point is not about whether the schedule is hard or easy; the point is about measuring individual performance as a function of team performance. If you recognize that an awesome team can get a quarterback a bunch of wins even if he’s not the best QB around, it’s odd that you apparently can’t recognize the effect that a good offense can have on a pitcher’s W number in baseball. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/49 "2010-09-12T16:41:52Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > > [@treis](#): > > > > Of these, only Palmer and Leinart were drafted high enough and have been in the league long enough to really matter. Palmer turned out to be good, and Leinart didn’t. No real pattern there. > > The point and the pattern is that the ones the press touted the most failed. That out of 14 QBs few had success in the pro game. A guy like Flute had to go Canadian and prove himself over and over. But Boston College is not USC or Texas. They walk in with a winners label and flounder. None of them came in and lit up the pros. You’re all over the place here, but I’ll go ahead and divide the 1st round QBs into big schools and not big schools. Big Time Schools: Vick (Va Tech #1), Grossman (Florida #22), Palmer (USC #1), Campbell (Auburn #25), Leinart (USC #10), Young (Texas #3), Russell (LSU #1), Sanchez (USC #5), Quinn (#22 ND) and Stafford (Georgia #1) Not Big Time Schools: Carr (Fresno St. #1), Harrington (Oregon #3), Ramsey (Tulane #32), Boller (Cal #19), Leftwich (#7 Marshall), Losman (#22 Tulane), Rivers (NC State #4), Roethlisberger (#11), Manning (Miss #1), Smith (#1 Utah), Rodgers (#24 Cal), Flacco (Delaware #18), Freeman (#17 KState) By my count, Big Time Schools have 5 hits, 4 misses, and 1 undetermined. Small schools have 6 hits and 7 misses. I don’t really see the hype for successful college guys in terms of the NFL. The only QBs in Scouts Inc top 32 right now are from Washington, Stanford, and Arkansas. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/50 "2010-09-12T21:25:39Z")
Nice breakdown, **treis**. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/51 "2010-09-12T22:13:57Z")
> [@treis](#): > > > [@gonzomax](#): > > > > The point and the pattern is that the ones the press touted the most failed. That out of 14 QBs few had success in the pro game. A guy like Flute had to go Canadian and prove himself over and over. But Boston College is not USC or Texas. They walk in with a winners label and flounder. None of them came in and lit up the pros. > > You’re all over the place here, but I’ll go ahead and divide the 1st round QBs into big schools and not big schools. > > Big Time Schools: Vick (Va Tech #1), Grossman (Florida #22), Palmer (USC #1), Campbell (Auburn #25), Leinart (USC #10), Young (Texas #3), Russell (LSU #1), Sanchez (USC #5), Quinn (#22 ND) and Stafford (Georgia #1) > > Not Big Time Schools: Carr (Fresno St. #1), Harrington (Oregon #3), Ramsey (Tulane #32), Boller (Cal #19), Leftwich (#7 Marshall), Losman (#22 Tulane), Rivers (NC State #4), Roethlisberger (#11), Manning (Miss #1), Smith (#1 Utah), Rodgers (#24 Cal), Flacco (Delaware #18), Freeman (#17 KState) > > By my count, Big Time Schools have 5 hits, 4 misses, and 1 undetermined. Small schools have 6 hits and 7 misses. > > I don’t really see the hype for successful college guys in terms of the NFL. The only QBs in Scouts Inc top 32 right now are from Washington, Stanford, and Arkansas. Which of course is the point. Pro scouts and teams are likely to choose a guy from a “winning” program because he is a winner. I don’t think that it is a very valuable tool for determining professional success. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/52 "2010-09-12T22:32:26Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > > [@treis](#): > > > > You’re all over the place here, but I’ll go ahead and divide the 1st round QBs into big schools and not big schools. > > > > Big Time Schools: Vick (Va Tech #1), Grossman (Florida #22), Palmer (USC #1), Campbell (Auburn #25), Leinart (USC #10), Young (Texas #3), Russell (LSU #1), Sanchez (USC #5), Quinn (#22 ND) and Stafford (Georgia #1) > > > > Not Big Time Schools: Carr (Fresno St. #1), Harrington (Oregon #3), Ramsey (Tulane #32), Boller (Cal #19), Leftwich (#7 Marshall), Losman (#22 Tulane), Rivers (NC State #4), Roethlisberger (#11), Manning (Miss #1), Smith (#1 Utah), Rodgers (#24 Cal), Flacco (Delaware #18), Freeman (#17 KState) > > > > By my count, Big Time Schools have 5 hits, 4 misses, and 1 undetermined. Small schools have 6 hits and 7 misses. > > > > I don’t really see the hype for successful college guys in terms of the NFL. The only QBs in Scouts Inc top 32 right now are from Washington, Stanford, and Arkansas. > > Which of course is the point. Pro scouts and teams are likely to choose a guy from a “winning” program because he is a winner. I don’t think that it is a very valuable tool for determining professional success. 😕 I am just confused at how to respond to this. I’m pretty sure I just showed that teams pick guys from winning programs because they are often good in the NFL. I guess I will now list the very successful QBs in college football that were drafted late or not at all: Craig Krenzel Chris Leak Jason White Josh Heupel Chris Weinke Eric Crouch Chase Daniel Troy Smith There’s no bias towards winning programs. There’s no bias towards a QB’s actual win/loss record. All there is bias towards is QBs that can play in the pros. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/53 "2010-09-12T22:37:52Z")
I think he might be saying that the big school “hits” you listed suck balls compared to the small school “hits.” Seriously, which group looks better: Carson Palmer Michael Vick Vince Young Jason Campbell Ben Roethlisberger Eli Manning Philip Rivers Aaron Rodgers Joe Flacco The second list is on a whole different tier than the first. Carson Palmer is about the only great QB drafted early from a big school, and he kinda sucks. The second list is sorted by Superbowl rings. heh. Looking at that, I think there might be something to the idea that big-school QBs may get a bit of a draft bump for being “winners” when in reality they could have probably won just as much being game managers. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/54 "2010-09-12T23:04:48Z")
I still don’t see any sign that QBs from winning programs are drafted higher than they should be. As far as busts go, there is only one really egregious bust from the big schools and that is Russell. On the other hand, there are three big busts from the small schools. Just thinking about this a little bit more, I picked a pretty favorable cutoff for small schools. I missed the busts that were Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch, and Akeli (however you spell it) Smith, and missed the hit that was P. Manning. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2010, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840/55 "2010-09-15T03:27:35Z")
“Flute?” “Mitch Gannon?” I’m loving the typos here. 🙂 I will admit that I am a dyed-in-wool SC hater. But that 2005 team was fellated nightly by ESPN, and that ridiculous series where they pitted '05 SC against every team of note over the past 30 years. That team was OVERRATED. Bush was a dynamic player, kind of the way Eric Crouch was. You knew he wasn’t going to get away with that stuff in the pros. Leinart was very average, definitely a caretaker QB. I can’t remember him winning a game through his smarts or arm that year. The Notre Dame game when Bush shoved him over the goal line was particularly uninspiring. Only a couple of players from that team have serviceable NFL careers. LenDale White just got cut from his second team along with Leinart. Bush is in no danger of being cut in New Orleans but Pierre Thomas is the big name there. 2005 USC had the advantage of a weak Pac-10, a media bromance, and having a lot of the players from the 2004 team return. But as my Longhorns demonstrated, they weren’t even the best team that year. 🙂 Karma’s a bitch. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-went-wrong-with-matt-leinart/552840.md?page=2)