Jack

Re: Tyrann Mathieu. You said it yourself. "He is quick, and he makes some dramatic plays..." In fact, you said it twice in the same short post. "He is quick, yes, but..."

As for the "but"... darned if I know what an "elite" corner back prospect is. I've said it before. I stink at identifying secondary prospects. I have no confidence where they are concerned. I look at all the parameters that the so called experts have established, apply those to the guys coming out year after year... and year after year the guys who were supposed to be no brainers, suck. And the guys who weren't quite tall enough, quite fast enough, didn't "flip their hips" well enough turn out to be great players.

And if that's not confusing enough, there's more transitioning going on in the defensive secondary than in any other group of players. Career safeties in college become shut down Corners in the NFL, and Can't miss Corners in college move on to great careers as safeties in the pros. Jeez-oh! Even Offensive Linemen don't move around as much as Secondary players.

So I'll stick to the, he's quick and made a lot of dynamic plays in college, evaluation. Heck, we're not talking about a first rounder here, so we're not talking about a big risk.

As for him being a knucklehead. Yup. He certainly is.

I have no problem with the kid smoking dope. Kids do. I did. It's not a performance enhancing drug. And considering the amount of drugs NFL players take on a day in and day out basis... smoking dope is no big thing.

What makes him a knucklehead is the fact that he knew it was banned by the sport he played, and he was being watched. And even after he was caught, tested positive... he went right on smoking. He believed he was untouchable.

And even after he was kicked off LSU's team... he was caught hanging out with drug dealers on campus!!!

So the question is... Is the kid dumb? or is the kid stupid? If he was just a dumb 19 year old kid... we could end up with a quick, dynamic player on our hands. If he's stupid... we cut him.

I think it's a risk we can afford with the roster we have in place now.

As to the players we have to retain:

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and as odd as it might sound... I hope Harbaugh is as good at developing QBs as we think he is, because I don't want the Niners to enter into the competition for the highest paid QB in the league.

I think these mega contracts to QBs are team killers.