MI players don’t expect anyone to skip Orange Bowl

Critics panned the decisions as the opposite of the team-first ideal.

I also understand plenty of college coaches have left their teams in the lurch after they were hired by other schools.

“I don’t think anyone on our team would do that”, he said.

With a pair of top prospects in the 2017 National Football League draft electing to skip their bowl games to avoid injury and prepare for the pros. McCaffrey missed time due to an undisclosed injury this season while still leading the country in all-purpose yardage. How could a big Sun Bowl game against North Carolina not further enhance his draft stock?

“It wouldn’t have been wrong to play, but it would have been risky”, The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Ken Goe wrote. And especially for a player like LeBron who, with 199 Playoff games under his belt, has the equivalent of two and a half extra season of wear and tear on his body.

Fournette’s coach. LSU head coach Ed Orgeron said, “We’re grateful for all of the years Leonard has given us, all the great memories, all the great games”.

“I didn’t really have any reaction to it because it has nothing to do with me I don’t think anybody here is thinking about doing the same thing”, he said.

Love’s skills were on display when he started for an injured McCaffrey back in October when Stanford faced Notre Dame.

That’s not criticizing McCaffrey or Fournette as much as acknowledging reality that society is more willing than ever to accept from businessmen disguised as college athletes. Personally, he’s a believer in seeing out a career until the end. If NFL-bound players have little incentive to play in these games, it may be something college football has to look at to reconsider and perhaps raise participation or incentive.

But congratulate them? I’ll hold my applause.

The All-Star Game has been defunct for four decades, and yet I still recall those dreamy midsummer nights with a sense of disbelief: Did I actually see raw rookies thrown to the wolves, year after year?

On the marginal benefit side, and as discussed in this ESPN Insider article, both players are viewed as “elite” running backs in this year’s upcoming 2017 NFL Draft.

McCaffrey’s decision to forgo his team’s bowl game marks the second time in the past week in which a star running back has made this decision.

Cowboys linebacker Jaylon Smith, who was seen as a possible top-five pick in the 2016 draft before suffering a knee injury in his final college game – the Fiesta Bowl – that pushed him out of the first round, expressed his disappointment with the players skipping their bowl games. They are not walking out on their teammates in the middle of a regular season or before a college football playoff game. Players who use the same strategy become pariahs to the institution of football. What he thinks maximizes his earning potential. Fewer need to be reminded that they are pawns in a multibillion dollar industry, brought in to be chewed up and spit out like pieces of inventory.

Regardless of the reaction, Fournette and McCaffrey may have opened the door for players to opt out in the future.

There have been endless hot takes on this issue, with some suggesting that college players have an obligation to their teammates to finish the season. Speaking to Fox Sports, the anonymous executive defended the players’ decisions and said, “Put yourself in their shoes, an injury could change the course of the rest of their lives”.

Compare his deal though with the one signed by Jalen Ramsey, who was drafted fifth overall (roughly in the neighborhood of where Smith was projected to be drafted).