During Monday’s “Pardon the Interruption” on ESPN, co-hosts Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discussed the reports that have come out of NFL team executives being blown away by former Florida State QB Jameis Winston’s football I.Q., with one executive comparing him to NFL great Peyton Manning.
According to Wilbon, the comparison to Manning is garbage and executives are just trying to justify taking him.
“I don’t believe any of this garbage. It’s garbage. Has he thrown a pass? Has he shown you he cannot get beat in a bowl game? He didn’t do any of that, Tony. I’m talking about lately. Has he done anything since then? Has he had pads on since then? Tony, don’t fall for this junk. This is what happens when a bunch of people are there for a purpose where they’ve got to hype something or figure out how they can make themselves important and tell you what they’ve determined. We don’t know anything and if you start comparing him to Peyton Manning, I’m going to shut you down.”
He continued by saying, “This is just offseason junk because in August — you know what’s the interesting thing? They did this last year with Johnny Manziel. He won the interview session. He was really good in the interview. But what does it mean? They want to act like these things didn’t happen so they can justify taking him. Just take him! Stop telling me all the reasons and building up this mythical character which by the third day of camp, everybody else will want to tear down. They’ve seen him as scouts, they get paid. They’ve watched him play. We’ve watched him play. Stop making up reasons to fall in love with the guy. He’s Peyton Manning? Shut up, you’ve lost me. They should have lost you. If you were the man you used to be, you would say get this out of here.”
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