If the NFL handed out superlatives for the draft class of 2009, the most intriguing prospect, the one that 31 teams are some day likely to wish they had spent a little more time getting to know, would be West Virginia's Pat White.
If ever there was a melding of just the right player at just the right time in the NFL draft, it would seem to be exactly now for the multi-faceted White, thanks to the high-profile success the Miami Dolphins had last season running the Wildcat. To hear league personnel scouts tell it, White could wind up being the NFL's wildest cat of all, out-doing even Ronnie Brown, the Wildcat's current poster-child and, somewhat by default, it's modern-day historical measuring stick.
Mike Mayock, the NFL Network draft analyst who for my money does the best job of all the draft-season talking heads, gushed over White on a conference call last week. And best I can tell, he's merely echoing the sentiments of several NFL teams when he calls White "one of the very special players'' in this year's draft.
"Pat White is not a gimmick,'' Mayock said. "He's the type of kid who you want the ball in his hands. I don't care if he's running it, throwing it, or catching it. I want the ball in his hands. Some teams like him as a quarterback. I'd take him in the second round with no hesitation, use him as a Wildcat this season, and try to develop him as a full-time quarterback, because I think he's got that kind of ability.''
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/don_banks/04/21/pat.white/index.html
If ever there was a melding of just the right player at just the right time in the NFL draft, it would seem to be exactly now for the multi-faceted White, thanks to the high-profile success the Miami Dolphins had last season running the Wildcat. To hear league personnel scouts tell it, White could wind up being the NFL's wildest cat of all, out-doing even Ronnie Brown, the Wildcat's current poster-child and, somewhat by default, it's modern-day historical measuring stick.
Mike Mayock, the NFL Network draft analyst who for my money does the best job of all the draft-season talking heads, gushed over White on a conference call last week. And best I can tell, he's merely echoing the sentiments of several NFL teams when he calls White "one of the very special players'' in this year's draft.
"Pat White is not a gimmick,'' Mayock said. "He's the type of kid who you want the ball in his hands. I don't care if he's running it, throwing it, or catching it. I want the ball in his hands. Some teams like him as a quarterback. I'd take him in the second round with no hesitation, use him as a Wildcat this season, and try to develop him as a full-time quarterback, because I think he's got that kind of ability.''
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/don_banks/04/21/pat.white/index.html
