Doyel: Draft McFadden? Duh

Perhaps the best quote about Darren McFadden came from a longtime scout who, like many in football now, are studying the Arkansas star closely and drooling.

"It would scare me to draft him," the scout said, "and it would scare me not to."

Imagine handing over millions, and your franchise's future, to a player. Would you want his mind on his job or paternity suits? (US Presswire)

McFadden runs a 4.3; his sperm does a legit 3.2.

I'm not saying McFadden is virile, but Shawn Kemp is jealous.

People who know McFadden (including scouts who have interviewed him) say he is a good person. A woman with great character played a significant part in raising him and was a valuable mentor. Some of that obviously rubbed off on McFadden. He is smart, courteous and polite. He has a strong work ethic.

He might end up being the best player in the draft. And any team who picks him high would be making a mistake.

Go ahead and call me a bad guy, a petulant little snot trough. But I'm right.

My belief is that within the next few years the problem of paternity and single fathers will eclipse performance-enhancing drugs as the biggest hot button issue in professional sports.

McFadden will still be drafted high because NFL teams are ho's. They'll talk about how they care about character, but they would sell their souls for talent. Sell them cheap, too. In fact, ho's have higher standards.

So it would serve NFL teams right -- and there is no bigger ho in sports than Bill Parcells, owner of the top pick -- if one of them took McFadden high in the draft and the running back later copulated himself out of football.

I am not preaching from an unblemished perch. But McFadden's reported admission to NFL teams that he is battling a paternity suit and has two kids out of wedlock about to be born before his 21st birthday is highly troubling.

He's not Dwight Howard, who had a single child out of wedlock. Players like Tom Brady and Matt Leinart don't catch as much heat as they should for having kids out of wedlock. Nevertheless, it is still only once.

McFadden possibly has at least two such children (emphasis on at least). That shows an inability to learn from mistakes. He's young, he's going to make them, and we all have. The problem is, if he has difficulties using condoms now, just wait until he joins the NFL. If he thought there were babes on the Arkansas campus, wait until he hits South Beach.

If guys like McFadden fail to grasp the life-altering seriousness of having multiple kids and being part-time fathers, can they be relied upon to carry a football team? It's a fair question to ask.

This isn't to say that because he might be a serial baby daddy he'll become an embarrassment. I'm not stating McFadden will de-evolve into a dogfighter or woman beater. I'd just be extraordinarily nervous about giving someone who has already shown such questionable judgment a great deal of cash.

The Denver Broncos invested heavily in Henry and it's humanly impossible to separate football from his chaotic, paternity-suit filled life.

McFadden's potential kid troubles are so concerning, I'd wait until the late first round to take him. I'd be fired. I'd be alone, because NFL general managers would phaser their first born to get a shot at a talent like McFadden.

But I'd be right.

Doyel and I might disagree on McFadden, but there is one thing we don't butt heads about: This is a topic that should be discussed in our society far more than it is now. If you do discuss it, too many times you're viewed as intolerant or boorish. Yet this issue is one of the biggest facing African-Americans and maybe all of big-time sports.

Again, hopefully McFadden matures quickly, proves me incorrect about him and travels to Costco and buys several hundred boxes of prophylactics.

"Prophylactic?" says Henry. "What team does he play for?"

The good news for McFadden is that teams won't care much about his personal issues. He'll be among the first picks in the draft and will earn millions.

And at the rate McFadden's reportedly producing children, he might be able to provide his own backups.