Garrett Grayson: Why wasn’t he successful?

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Grayson played in a pro style offense. He can play under center. He can go in a three, five or seven-step drop. He can come in and help you,” Kiper said. “He has enough mobility. Losing bothers him. He is a tremendous competitor. I think Grayson’s a second-rounder.

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“Draft Expert” Mel Kiper

He couldn’t outshine Chase Daniel

That was just a bad year to draft a tier 2 QB. Toer 2 was Grayson, Brett Huntley, Sean Mannion and Bryce Petty.

And tier 1 was Winston and Mariota. Woof.

Especially Huntley and Petty were awesome in college. And those guys were awful in the pros.

Payton should have waited. At that point they were probably like “hey—the 3rd best QB is still on the board in round 3. Why not?” These days the 3rd best QB won’t get past pick 10.

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Losing bothers him. He is a tremendous competitor.

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That was incredibly false information. It’s what burned him. He had some tools but ultimately he wasn’t very cerebral (this has been mentioned by the beat writers who have talked to coaches), couldn’t learn the playbook, was slow picking things up and didn’t really care to after he was challenged by Brees, Payton and the others. He kind of checked out and just wasn’t as much of a competitor as they were led to believe. He wasn’t like Taysom, Brees, Teddy and Jameis, waking up early as shite, studying and wanting to get better. Just wasn’t in his blood and at that level, that kind of work and study and preparedness goes a long way with Sean. In fact, it’s almost necessary if you want to be successful with him. Being fricking smart helps too. Brees was very cerebral. So is Jameis despite what people think.


I think CSP could ultimately make a QB that isn’t that smart work but if you’re not putting in 12-15 hour days every single day with him then you’re likely not going to be successful. Takes a special amount of dedication and Grayson just didn’t have it. He was dedicated im sure and tried, but to compete at the highest level requires even more, especially when you’re not Pat Mahomes level gifted, which guys like Brees, Grayson, etc. were not.

Dude had the weirdest throwing motion.

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Garrett Grayson: Why wasn’t he successful?

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The same reason Ian Book won’t be. He’s just not good enough. Another waste of a pick.

Man. Makes you wonder why they couldn’t pick up on that in an interview or conversations with coaches. Makes you wonder if something happened in his personal life or if money changed him. I know he didn’t get paid much, but going from zero to probably making over a million while he was in the league to be nothing but a backup might change some people.

We drafted him to be a Drew Brees clone. He had one thing in common with Drew Brees. He was short. I think they are imagining the same thing in this guy from Notre Dame.

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Man. Makes you wonder why they couldn’t pick up on that in an interview or conversations with coaches. Makes you wonder if something happened in his personal life or if money changed him.

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I think a lot of it stems from issues Payton and the old scouting department had with evaluation. They didn't value the work ethic, the preparedness, whether or not the guys actually loved football, their general level of intelligence and whether or not they're competitive. If they're competitive, they hate losing and if they hate losing, they'll work hard to make sure it doesn't happen, pushing themselves as players. All of those things are incredibly difficult to peg down for every single team. Even the Saints aren't perfect. You could argue Davenport doesn't really love football.

But they're a lot better at it than other teams. Payton really really values intelligence and so does Ireland. Just look and watch all the players we have drafted since 2016. Outside of Lattimore and CGJ, all of those guys are extremely well-spoken and very, very intelligent. Not that those guys aren't smart, they're just smarter in different ways.

And in the case of Lattimore and CGJ, you could argue they play a position where gritty and toughness, and athleticism account for way more than intelligence. And you also have two guys that love to compete and love football. So with Grayson, we weren't looking for the right things, probably looking only at the physical nature and the pro style system he was running (which wasn't actual pro style, just a bastardized version under McElwain).