Proving that he is not the arrogant, entitled guy that NFL teams who passed over him several times reportedly believed him to be, former Alabama QB AJ McCarron met with reporters in Cincinnati and blamed those teams for thinking he's an arrogant, entitled guy.
"I guess when teams met with me, they wanted me to say I'll be a third-round guy and a mediocre quarterback," McCarron told reporters, who apparently resisted the temptation to tell him that would be the honest thing to say.
"Maybe I was too honest or something,” McCarron continued, without irony. “I'm an honest person and I say what I feel. That's how I feel about my play. If that turns a team off, then at the end of the day, to me, they didn't really want you. I was myself."
How’s that working out for ya, AJ McCarron, fifth-round pick for the Bengals?
To be fair, McCarron won two national championships as the starter for the Tide and finished as a Heisman Trophy runner-up. In his mind, those credentials meant he could meet with NFL teams and tell him he’s The Man. To be realistic, those Tide teams rolled with defense, a punishing running game fueled by dominant offensive lines and a boatload of talented wide receivers.
That’s not to say McCarron had little to do with the Tide's success. But neither does it mean it’s a good idea for him to tell NFL people who potentially are going to invest a lot of money in him that he’s going to set the league on fire (or as ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported, to talk down his fellow quarterback prospects).
Blowing off the Senior Bowl (in his hometown of Mobile, no less) as if he had nothing to prove probably wasn't the best idea. That's especially the case when the last impression of McCarron at Alabama was him folding against Oklahoma's aggressive pass rush.
There’s a fine line between confident and cocky. Surprisingly, the Bama-born-and-bred quarterback with the model
doesn't seem able to artfully negotiate it.
“It [stinks] that it hurt me like that, but at the same time, I feel like God has a plan,” McCarron said, meaning God’s plan apparently involves him being so arrogant in interviews with potential future employers that he loses out on lots of cash and ends up playing for the Bengals.
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