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If Robert Griffin III is looking for some company at his selfish person support group meetings, maybe he should give a call to highly touted tackle prospect Matt Kalil ‒ evidently, he's got some attitude problems, too.
It was Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who quoted an anonymous scout Thursday about Griffin's selfish streak. He does it again Friday, quoting another scout about Kalil's poor attitude.
"Not one of my faves," one scout said. "More of it is just his character. He doesn't have an offensive lineman's character, especially when you take into account how good his brother is in that way. He's got a real sense of entitlement. Hey, he's got a lot of talent. He'll overcome some of those things if he doesn't want to wash out, if he doesn't want to end up being Robert Gallery."
As to how to react to this as a fan, I'm of the same mind as Doug on RGIII. A scout has seen film of Kalil play football, and interacted with him in person, for what, a few hours, tops? If he can accurately distill a man's entire character in that short a period of time, then he shouldn't be a scout, he should be Dr. Phil. By the same token, I read this interview with Kalil (Part I and Part II) ‒ I do not consider myself in a position to call Kalil the greatest man humanity has ever seen.
Scouts can be a unique brand of people, though. Here are some more gems from the same collection of opinions on linemen:
On Riley Reiff of Iowa:
"Reiff is a dirt bag. I like the way he plays."
This one, I get, though the term "dirt bag" always amuses me. I guess to a scout, a dirt bag is someone who plays on the edge between clean and dirty and will maybe take a cheap shot here or there. To me, a dirt bag is a guy who spends the rent money playing video poker in a musty bar at 2 p.m. on a Thursday.
On Jonathan Martin of Stanford:
"One scout said Martin's father was a college professor and his mother was an attorney."
Oh, so the offspring of well-educated professionals can't be tough? Tell that to Theo Huxtable ‒ his best friend was named Cockroach, for heaven's sake! Don't discount Martin's dirt bag-ability. I've known plenty of kids from well-to-do parents who also happened to be dirt bags.
On Kelechi Osmele of Iowa State:
"I just don't know if football is that important to him. He was raised by women, which bothers me. I mean, how tough can he be? It's not his fault, but it's still reality."
Is it reality, or is it some weird stereotype you concocted? How tough can he be? I don't know, if people like this guy picked on him his whole life because he was raised by women (and I'm not even sure that's true), he's probably pretty damn tough. And what, women can't raise tough kids? How many NFL players come from single mothers? Because there's two of them, they can't be tough? What if his mothers are Nurse Ratched and The Fabulous Moolah?