St. Louis Rams General Manager Billy Devaney was the director of player personnel for the San Diego Chargers when they drafted Ryan Leaf in 1998. He doesn’t want to make that mistake again.
And so, Devaney told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he’s learned a lesson that with quarterbacks, you’re not going to succeed in the NFL “If you don’t have the intangibles to play that position.”
With the Rams now 10 days away from an NFL draft in which they’re expected to select Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford first overall, Devaney sounds like a man who has made up his mind about whether Bradford can make all the throws, but wants to make sure Bradford can deal with all the other aspects of being a franchise quarterback.
“To me, the physical skills are almost the easy part now [in evaluating] these kids,” Devaney said. “There’s so much that goes into being a quarterback in the NFL. The work ethic that you have to have. The leadership. The time that you put in. The media scrutiny. If you can’t handle all that stuff, you’re going to have a hard time performing on the field.”