Eh.. I've always viewed it as the player who's a much bigger gamble because, despite the immense amount of potential, no one knows if it will be reached at the next level, and he therefore has just as much potential to do absolutely nothing. And I don't necessarily see anything wrong with saying that. Anyone can bust, but not everyone can boom. There are guys who don't really have a high ceiling, i.e. their potential is less (and they usually aren't projected to go very early, so you're not gambling on them with a high pick/salary); so you wouldn't call them a boom/bust player. Am I making sense? (btw, when I saw this thread was started by Kelly, I initially thought it said "TRANNY dept")
I think you're making sense, but I don't really agree. There are hundreds of players every year who are great athletes, and many of them put up great stats in college. I think you could term most of those players 'boom/bust' just on athletic ability. It's what's inside their head that makes the difference, and there's no fucking way in hell guy like Mayock is going to find that kind of thing out second- and third-hand when the teams scouting the player have trouble doing it first-hand. There is no exact science to being able to tell the difference between the booms and the busts before the draft, because teams are given a limited amount of time to interview them, watch them practice, and just spend time around them to see what kind of person they are. If they're coachable, if they love the game, if they have a certain attitude in the classroom, etc. But you only hear 'boom/bust' when it comes to 1st round prospects because this is the way that draftniks cover their asses when they are predicting that a player with a ton of question marks goes as high as Gholston did. Because a guy like Mayock - an NFL employee - has certain obligations to his corporation to make their flagship channel look like the only true news source for the sport. The corporation in turn requires a certain amount of info from the offices of their teams to help Mayock look competent. It's a bunch of wonderful TV magic designed to make you believe that he is the guy with the crystal ball. Instead of the guy with the inside connections. You will see evidence of my theorized CONSPIRACY when Adam Schefter's reports start resembling the trash that Clayton and Mortenson put out nowadays.
Thats was a funniest opinion I ever heard. There is a big difference with Minny and the Jets of this year. Minny has a pretty good defense not that the jets were that bad last year and they have AP one of the best RBs in the game right now.
I definitely hear what you're saying, especially the part about dissecting the players' heads. But I just think that a player like, say, Reggie Bush, should be labeled boom/bust because he has all of the potential & athletic ability in the world which is why he was drafted so high, but no one knows if he'll fully reach it; whereas, a player like Maroney could just as easily bust, but he would never be considered a Top 5 pick because he's less likely to boom in the way Bush could.
