With the Minnesota Vikings fairly glaring hole at middle linebacker, I've been thinking quite a bit about one of the best college players at the position in recent years. In November of this past year Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o was considered one of the best college football players and a certain top-10 pick in the 2013 NFL Draft. As it stands now, he's hanging out at the end of the first round. Ray Lewis was drafted around there. What went wrong? Well, pretty much everything went wrong.
When a soon to be professional football player is being interviewed by Katie Couric rather than Mike Mayock something is wrong. Te'o became tabloid fodder because he was naive. Some might call it stupid. Naive sounds better. People once fell in love through letters having never met. Some still do.With the technology today the same thing can happen but just a bit faster. I know many people through internet message boards. I even think of some as friends. I really know nothing about them. I can see how some of the more trusting (naive or stupid?) can view these relationships as something more than they truly are. Some of the more devious prey upon that trust. It's really no surprise that some may be "catfished." You don't even have to be stupid to fall for it. Just trusting or hopeful will do. Some of those that laughed at Te'o may have been caught themselves. Fortunately for most, it's not played out on a national stage. Manti Te'o became a joke. Perhaps laughing at him made us feel better for the times that we were made the fool. Perhaps we also believed something on the internet that never proved to be true.
The "catfishing" of Manti Te'o doesn't bother me. The coverage bothered me more than his mistake. His play in the BCS Championship game against Alabama bothered me more. Tide coach Nick Saban clearly saw neutralizing Te'o as a key to the game. The supremely talented Alabama line went after the Notre Dame leader. Big time players still find a way. His instincts still showed but he didn't finish plays. Despite the size of that game, I'm not going to let one game wipe out his entire college career. I've seen enough of Te'o to know that the Alabama game was an exception but it does cause some concern. I was disappointed that he skipped the Senior Bowl. It would have been good to see him on the field in that environment. The week of practices can be the setting for an outstanding draft statement. Perhaps the circus surrounding him had gotten too great. Even non-football fans couldn't get enough of Te'o's woes. He raised even more football concerns when he ran a slower than expected 40 at the Scouting Combine. None of that really bothered me. Pretty much the only thing that has bothered me about Manti Te'o's unfortunate past few months were his excuses. I can't recall now if Te'o made excuses for his play in the BCS Championship game. I recall that excuses were made for him. Some said that the drain of the postseason awards tour had gotten to him. The internet hoax was at full boil heading into the game. He had plenty of distractions. Maybe he tossed out those excuses but I can't recall for sure. I do know that he tried to explain away his 40 time with the pressure and stress that he was under to perform well. I pretty sure that every football player in Indianapolis is under pressure and stress to perform well at the combine. That bothered me. That pressure didn't prevent him from turning around and performing very well in the field drills. I thought that his talk show tour was pathetic but that may have been more his advisers choice. The last couple months of Manti Te'o's college football career was a disaster. That's too bad because the previous four years were terrific.
As a football player, there's a lot to like about Manti Te'o. His emotion, drive, and leadership are unique. His Notre Dame team wasn't always the most talented team on the field each week. Yet, this past season they won every week until the last. Te'o was the difference. His team believed in him and followed him. That's why Nick Saban targeted him that last week. With Te'o, it's mostly his intangibles that intrigue me. He's a good athlete but his play is greater than his athletic ability would indicate. It's a mistake to compare any college linebacker to Ray Lewis. It's not fair to Lewis or the kid. Lewis fell to the lower third of the first round for many of the same reasons that some use to describe/knock Te'o. Not athletic enough. Not fast enough. It's difficult to measure accurately the intangibles that some players bring. When I think of Manti Te'o as an NFL player, something close to Ray Lewis is certainly my hope. Especially if the Minnesota Vikings draft him.
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