If you're the starter and you do well, you can go from 3rd round to 1st round. That could earn you many more millions of dollars. If you can become Big Ben (probably his best NFL comp) and get picked around #10, you're talking about an extra $10MM. A lot depends on whether he starts and what round he really would have gone this year - and no one knows the answer to either of those questions.
he has more upside than mariota to me he is what jamarcus russell would be if he cared about football
I understand your point, but I can't give Jones credit for the entire Ohio State team going to another level. After the shine has worn off next spring, the best player will win.
Jones has the better arm talent. And we haven't seen JT play on the biggest stages like Jones. I think JT is more of a fit for Urban's system but with JT being younger he could possibly roll with Jones... It doesn't matter which one is better when you can run the table with either one. And what makes you think Jones will remain the same...? Why can't he get better. Is 22 too old of an age to improve... If he does sit on the bench next season it wouldn't hurt his draft stock. And he would probably still be one of the top 2-3 NFL quarterback prospects in next year's draft. The NFL will not forget what he did and will not forget him. His draft stock won't go down just because he's not playing. It would go down if he plays and sucks.
Gigantic "if," though. Who's to say a team wouldn't have taken a flyer on the guy in the draft? Obviously time will tell if he did the right thing, but I think he made a mistake.
He was very unlikely to have an NFL career no matter what, at least going back gives him a chance. If he declared now, he'd look like s*** compared to literally every other QB in the class based on experience alone. Maybe a team would use a throwaway pick on him like a team did with Micheal Sam last year, but that's the most he could hope for IMO.
