Football is pretty much all DGB has and I'm not sure I've seen his work ethic actively questioned. Gary Pinkel sure was quick to phone his friend Bob Stoops, personally vouch for Dorial, and facilitate a transfer to Oklahoma. Those around the Mizzou program never caught any whiff of Dorial being a sloucher with respect to work ethic or desire to be great. Like many young players (the last time we saw him play football he was just a redshirt freshman) he wasn't completely grasping the mental or technical details yet. That's hardly new of guys who were at high school prom 18 months ago. But those that know his background, I don't think they question that football is all he has and so he's pretty committed to it.
When his girlfriend (whom he'd just dragged out of her apartment by the arm and neck because he caught her cheating on him with a teammate) texted her roommate that night to try and get her roommate not to call the cops or press charges on DGB, that was the explanation that kept coming up in her texts. Football is all he has. It's interesting to me because here is a girl who is clearly mad at him for what he did, probably does NOT believe she will continue to have any connection with Dorial going forward due in part to her philandering and in part to his horrifying reaction to it, but she still felt sorry for the guy. She recognized football is the only good thing he has going in his life and she wanted to help him protect that, despite everything.
Why? Well, the background gives us clues. This is a kid with an incredibly tragic tale. Mother was a crack addict. She OD'd on a drug ****tail while she was 6 months pregnant and at the hospital they pronounced her baby Dorial dead in the womb. Somehow he survived, she carried him to term, and gave birth to him only to have he and his brothers living out of the back of a van with their crack-addicted mother and the men she cycled in and out of her life (any of whom could have been Dorial's father, because nobody knows who that was including her). He and his closest brother Darren go through the foster system, at one point land in a home for physically and sexually abused children, eventually land with a foster couple on a farm. The father (from Coral Gables, big Dolphins fan, played at The U and is still close friends with Al Del Greco) is a football coach. But then the foster mother develops thyroid cancer, childrens services take Dorial and Darren away to place them in the care of blood relatives, split up Darren and Dorial (causing 10 pounds of weight loss each from sheer depression), and the Beckhams had to press on Missouri politicians through connections to get the two kids back in their care and officially adopt them, which they did even though the mother was being treated for thyroid cancer. But then in 2011, Darren is diagnosed with leukemia and has to go live at All Children's Hospital. The father took a leave of absence from work and lived with him while Dorial prepared to be the most coveted football recruit in the country (which he was, Phil Steele said he was the best wide receiver recruit he'd seen since Randy Moss).
Doesn't excuse what Dorial did the night he found out his girl was cheating on him with a teammate. Nothing excuses that. But what I take away from the story is that of the four closest people in his life, two are cancer survivors, one is a football coach and a veritable saint, and the other (an older, adopted brother) played for Army, has finished his service, and has been living with Dorial in Oklahoma to help him stay driven.
Talk to scouts about Dorial Green-Beckham and they don't see someone like Josh Gordon who essentially needs marijuana to function because of some untreated mental health issues. They see a kid that goes with the flow, does what the cool kids do with respect to the marijuana history. Got busted with some other kids for having a little bit of pot on him, then got busted again for being in the presence of a friend who was carrying a pound of weed. Probably has some drug test failures in his time at Missouri.
They see a kid that needed structure and the right crowd around him at Missouri, but didn't really get that. But he did get it at Oklahoma, and he's been both a model worker and model citizen there. He only left for the Draft early because his offensive coordinator with whom he developed a close relationship Jay Norvell left the program.
What I see is a receiver that is probably the most purely physically gifted that I've seen since Calvin Johnson, up there with A.J. Green, Julio Jones, Dez Bryant, with the pure potential to exceed them. I also see a kid that has a surprisingly good (considering his origins) support structure around him between his Army brother who is willing to live with him and take an active role keeping him on the straight and narrow, his adoptive parents, and his cancer surviving younger brother.
So I'm looking at all this from an asset valuation standpoint. Taking him is a risk. But every draft pick is fraught with risk. Much of the risk of those picks is tied up in the risk that the player just isn't all that good. I'm not sure that's much of a risk with Dorial Green-Beckham. Some would compare him to a Mike Williams (USC) and I think that's fair because they have/had the same body, much of the same athletic movement, some of the same issues. But Dorial is purely faster and that counts for something. You see enough corners and safeties that you KNOW have 4.50 speed, look absolutely flabberghasted at how to handle Dorial Green-Beckham's speed, well that's why we're making Calvin Johnson comparisons I think.
And it's not just fans saying that. There are a lot of scouts making the exact same statements about he and Calvin Johnson or he and Randy Moss. Albert Breer just had a piece yesterday where he's got quotes from several scouts saying exactly that.
