La’El Collins’ reps says if he’s not selected in rounds 2 or 3, he’ll not sign a contract with NFL team & resubmit his name for ’16 draft

[derek]

Heard he's interested in Carolina so he can be with his friend trai Turner

[Superman]

Personally I think the NFL should have let him go supplemental on the condition he was completely exonerated of any involvement. 

 

I'm in the same boat, but define "completely exonerated." It's really hard, if not impossible, to prove a negative.

 

I don't think the NFL wants to create a messy precedent which would lead to players who get in trouble before the draft trying to get into the supplemental draft. Especially fringe players who would otherwise get a lot less attention. These circumstances are so outrageous that there's little chance something like this ever happens again, but what if a guy gets accused of domestic violence right before the draft? Can he then qualify for the supplemental draft? It's really tricky.

 

There's an article, I think on BR, about a team that took him off their board (could be any team, obviously, since no one drafted him). The article says their entire personnel department had a meeting about him Wednesday, and they decided not to touch him. But one of the guys in the room asked "why are we punishing him for something we know he didn't do?" The answer was that they'd let the process play itself out (typical NFL type of answer). The article also gave the impression that most teams were working with the same amount of information. So if this one team seemed confident that Collins wasn't going to be implicated, I'd assume that everyone else feels the same way.

 

At this point, I think his threat to hold out was the major factor why someone didn't draft him in the later rounds. This way, he has to sign this year, unless the NFL makes a special exception for him, and that seems unlikely.

[esmort]

I'm in the same boat, but define "completely exonerated." It's really hard, if not impossible, to prove a negative.

 

I don't think the NFL wants to create a messy precedent which would lead to players who get in trouble before the draft trying to get into the supplemental draft. Especially fringe players who would otherwise get a lot less attention. These circumstances are so outrageous that there's little chance something like this ever happens again, but what if a guy gets accused of domestic violence right before the draft? Can he then qualify for the supplemental draft? It's really tricky.

 

There's an article, I think on BR, about a team that took him off their board (could be any team, obviously, since no one drafted him). The article says their entire personnel department had a meeting about him Wednesday, and they decided not to touch him. But one of the guys in the room asked "why are we punishing him for something we know he didn't do?" The answer was that they'd let the process play itself out (typical NFL type of answer). The article also gave the impression that most teams were working with the same amount of information. So if this one team seemed confident that Collins wasn't going to be implicated, I'd assume that everyone else feels the same way.

 

At this point, I think his threat to hold out was the major factor why someone didn't draft him in the later rounds. This way, he has to sign this year, unless the NFL makes a special exception for him, and that seems unlikely.

 

By completely exonerated I would mean the Police make a statement clearing him of any involvement and the NFL/Team investigators verify that the police are telling the truth not just making a statement because they don't have enough evidence right now and that he is still secretly a "person of interest".

 

I agree they want and need to be careful about the precedent that they set, but there should be some remedy for a player whose draft stock gets destroyed by situations like this.  They just need to make sure there are no loop holes for all the players who make stupid mistakes and hurt there own draft stock to slip through.

 

I definitely agree his threat to hold out was what caused him not to be taken late in the draft.  I still haven't decided if I think that was a smart play or a stupid play on his (or his agents) part.  I can see positives and negatives to playing it that way.

[dudley dawson]

If he's cleared, we need to get him!