Sounds to me that Mario was never seriously in the picture. I had a strong suspicion that Mario was just being used to gain leverage on Bush, and it seemed that it worked. I think that is why Mario seemed upset w/ the Texans, everybody wants to be the #1 pick, you're talking about 50M contracts w/ 24M guaranteed, everyone wants that. But I bet he wasn't too enthused that the Texans were using him, but it could have worked out for him as well, it solidified him as the #2 prospect in the draft.
I am not sure he is a good character guy. Though I do not believe the housing arrangement will make much difference in the end, Bush comes like someone who does not care about the law of the land and one who would lie about it blatantly. How can your family move to a posh home in an upscale neighborhood in San Diego and you say you do not know about it? Like he never visited them while they lived there? He never asked them who owned the house? Does he think we are fools? His folks have been living there since the spring of 2005. I agree also that this problem is likely a wide spread one. But we cannot blame the NCAA - when student athlete sign the sheets he is agreeing to adhere to the rules and regulations. ESPN just reported that the enstranged agents want a "pound of flesh" of their own. They claim they have incriminating evidence against Bush unless he pays for damages. Interesting stuff. Mario Williams on the other hand appears to be a standup guy from what I read about his bio and his personality makeup. My fear is that this will likely not end tomorrow.
I don't know how you can go from a possible housing scandal to he doesn't care about the law of the land. In reality, there is ZERO evidence any laws have been broken. There may have been NCAA violations, but those aren't the "law of the land". I'm not sure if "posh" is the way I'd describe that house, but that's just IMO. And, just out of curiosity, how much impact did you have on your parents' choice of homes when you were 19, 20? Hell, I barely SAW my parents when I was that age, let alone asked them how they were paying the bills or how things were financially. I'm not saying Reggie didn't have some involvement. If his connections helped his family, obviously, that's an issue for the NCAA. But, we're projecting the financial accumen of an accountant onto a 19-year-old college student, whose primary reason for being in college is playing football. Let's at least be realistic.
Criticizing Bush's character because of this is ridiculous. Hell, LBJ did the same thing with the throwback jerseys. If this "scandal" affects who you think should be the #1 pick, you probably never wanted Bush in the first place.
Jeff, The "land" in this case was just a figure of speech refering to the the governing body, NCAA. You are right that he may be telling the trutch about not knowing about the arrangemment so a benefit of doubt is in place for Reg. If found liable by the NCAA and PAC10, the person I will most likely even blame is his family. It is their responsibility to protect him. Something is fishy about this but it in the end it does not matter much since it will not affect his draft status. Bron-Bron was duly critiqued as well for the Hummer and throwbacks. You are right - Bush is not my first choice. It is a moot point now since we all know that the Texans will draft Bush according to reliable sources. I truly believe we can get a back that can give us what ush offers easier than we can land a high impact "trench-man"
I heard the same thing that was reported somewhat. The Texans were close to a contract with Reggie but didn't make any progress yesterday. Many feel that Mario's displeasure with us has cost us leverage in negotiating with Bush and shifted a lot of the power back to his camp. There was a general feeling by the Texans organization that they would have the deal done today and by making no progress yesterday it's up in the air. Despite all that I've heard that Bush is still the guy and they aren't wavering on that. As I posted yesterday there is a feeling that Mario may not even want to play for us after all this crap so Bush's camp is going to take this and run with it (who wouldn't). To answer someone else's question, the Texans aren't concerned at all about the house situation with Bush. They did look into it but it doesn't effect their opinion on him whatsoever. I personally don't think we should have played all these games from the beginning. We played the VY card for a while (even though wewere never serious) to satisfy our fans and create an illusion that we were at least considering him. Now that the truth comes out (which I've said all along) it naturally pisses a bunch of people off. Then, you decide on Bush but bring in Mario to use as leverage. Once Mario sees you arent serious he gets pissed and now all the power shifts to Bush and his camp. CC comes out and says we only have interest in two players and destroys any trade value our pick may have had. Just some poor decision making by our organization
I agree. I don't think we should have gone 'Carlos Beltran' on VY and Mario. You can bet that other potential free agents (and their agents) have been watching and taking notes on how this has all gone down.
They really screwed it up by not engaging Mario in more serious talks after they initially started. They could have easily said to Mario what CC has been saying all week "We haven't made up our mind on who we want but we'd like to come to terms on a deal with both sides so when we decide everythinng runs smoothly". That would have worked perfect. Now all the power is with Reggie and you have a guy who's unhappy with your organiztion.
They are going to call a press conference right in middle of the draft? Are we going to pull Casserly and company out of the war room to announce that we signed Bush?
If they had a contract in place, why announce it after the draft? That makes no sense. Given IC's history of trolling, I'll wait until I hear this from someone else.
Your right I never had inside information (especially about the rockets), I am telling you the welcoming bush news conference will be at 630. As for the contract I dont know when it will be announced, or if its close.
The so called "Experts" on ESPN sure don't sound too convinced that we are taking Reggie. THey all say that we SHOULD, but not too surprised with Mario...
