http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/sport...-for-a-second-time-defends-his-character.html

Like him or hate him, we definitely seem interested. Ireland has made character calls before on guys like Dez Bryant - will be interesting to see what we do in Mallett's case. Some major talent easily worth being drafted at 15 (and much higher). The character concerns would definitely be bad if true, but to this point there really is very little to indicate most of the rumors are accurate - especially about some of the more major things such as hard drug usage.

Now, I am certainly not a coke-head (hell I have never even dabbled in MJ), but based on what I know, wouldn't it be fairly obvious if he was using? I mean, you look at someone like Lindsey Lohan, and she goes from hot to crazy in a heartbeat. With Mallett, does anyone see that kind of thing evident? Coke and other hard drugs to my knowledge isn't something you can just go and snort a line at a party every few weeks - doesn't it pretty much consume you?

 

While I've never used coke myself, I have known many coke-heads. And yes there are many that can pretty much just snort a line every few weeks.

 

Not everyone who uses just blows throw 8 balls a week, I've know people who did coke regularly and it was mostly on weekends and you wouldn't have been able to tell them from adam, not everyone ends up looks some of the people on TV, you can't just look at someone and know what they do.

 

I think that people who have very set schedules seem to handle it better. Maybe they just have other things in their life that are important and take up their time. It could help to be a player vs. a college student who had more free time on his hands. That always makes you wonder what that player will do out in the real world with more money and eventually more time he has discretion over.

 

You have a good point, there's simply people who can deal with that kind of thing and not go off the deep end and there are people who shouldn't have so much as a beer. If Mallett had any kind of drug problem(which there has been zero evidence of) I'd guess he'd be in the former group as I don't think it seemed to effect his play, plus the semester he kept to a very tight schedule. That said it has to be something you worry about if you find there's truth to that.

 

What worries me about the drug rumors is that I've been hearing them for years. If you do searches now there's nothing anywhere, but I was following this kid when he was being recruited out of HS. The rumors then and later at Michigan were fairly specific. They didn't sound false or contrived. There have also been some fairly respected scouts and reporters who have stated that they knew from reliable sources that he had drug problems and wouldn't touch him, but now all you here is nebulous rumors. And since they never revealed their sources now all you get is "nothing confirmed". IMO there is far too much smoke to ignore. I get how anybody who just started looking at him in the last year can come to a different conclusion, but I've been following him for a long time. My guess is that the team's scouts have been talking to people about him for longer than this year and that they've heard the same things I have and more. All that being said, even if he has/had a drug problem he may overcome it. The organization has to assess that risk in evaluating him.

 

Thanks for that bit, didn't know he had rumors going all the way back to HS since I didn't start looking at him as much till this past year I didn't know they had been lingering doubts... that would change things but only the teams have the complete info on that.

 

Assuming this guy has been getting screened for what...3, 4 years now, I just don't see how he could be doing drugs without a positive pee test at some point. I mean, don't they do those things randomly? And, if you're going back to HS, well...based on my HS days, I'm certainly not going to pass judgement on him or anyone else for anything they may have done. :shifty:

 

They come randomly, sort of. I have heard of many players getting heads up in advance of their "random" tests. I've even heard of players playing three years and only getting screened once the whole time.