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If you're a resident of the Comments section, you might have seen these already, but I think they're worth discussing separately. We'll start off with Evan Silva of Rotoworld and his tweet quoting Chris Mortensen.
ESPN's Chris Mortensen on Teddy Bridgewater: "His private workouts have also gone very shakily." Teams concerned about Teddy's hand size.
— Evan Silva (@evansilva) April 11, 2014
According to his profile on NFL.com, Bridgewater's hands measured at 9 1/4". We can compare that to Alex Smith, a former first overall pick in 2005, who had his hands measured at 9 3/4"-- half an inch larger for the mathematically challenged. Smith struggled mightly for most of his career with the 49ers and his average hand size was often blamed.On the other hand (nailed it), Brett Favre's hands measured at 10 3/8" and he had a legendary deep ball-- not to mention one of the most convincing pump fakes in league history.
Kennard McGuire, Bridgewater's agent, begged to differ and told Mike Florio of PFT that his client has only had one private workout. From the article:
"While I am certain [Mortensen's] statement wasn’t intended to be misleading, it is my duty to remove and eliminate any doubt. Teddy has visited multiple teams with more workouts and visits coming in the near future. The assessment we received from the one workout was ‘simply amazing and sharp,’ and we expect nothing short or less than stellar in the upcoming workouts in the very near future."
Florio notes that "teams lie as a matter of habit," and that nothing they say about private workouts should be trusted, and I think he's exactly right. Teams like the Texans and Patriots would absolutely love Bridgewater slipping into the late first or early second round. Using media voices like Mortensen to plummet his stock value only makes sense. And if they privately hosted a player they didn't really like, why not talk him up publicly to inflate his value to your rivals?
Conversely, how much can you trust an agent who's financially motivated to ensure his client gets drafted as high as possible?
Draft season is lying season, as Capt. Ron said in our group email. Meanwhile, we fans are left flapping in the wind like squeaky weather vanes trying to figure out what's going to happen next. May 8th can't come soon enough.