You Can't Go Home Again

Thanks to Coach Coolbaugh, the struggles of JaMarcus Russell have been documented on this blog, and we have been asked to consider whether Russell can legitimately be dubbed The Worst Draft Pick in NFL History.

This is a worthy and interesting question. However, for the time being, I would like to consider a related question: Why was JaMarcus Russell taken number one in the first place?

There are, no doubt, a number of contributing factors, including Russell's physical and statistical dominance at LSU. And yet, Russell's draft stock was less a byproduct of his own successes than those of another man.

 

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Daunte Rachard Culpepper was born in Ocala, FL, forty-five minutes south of the University of Florida's Gainesville campus. At nearby Vanguard High School, Culpepper emerged as a star athlete on three varsity teams, and his exploits on the football field eventually won him a spot on the Florida High School Athletic Association's All-Century Team alongside Sunshine State legends Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Ray Lewis, Deion Sanders, and Jesus H. Tebow.

As a blue-chip Florida recruit in the mid-90s, young Culpepper should have had his pick of the top local programs. In Tallahassee, Bobby Bowden's Seminoles were two years removed from a National Championship and coming off a victory over rival Florida in the Orange Bowl. Although mired in something of a bowl drought, the University of Miami had established itself during the 80s and early 90s as a powerhouse program, and had claimed a National Championship as recently as 1991. Then there were the Gators, a program on the rise under Coach Steve Spurrier, and a natural choice for Culpepper given his proximity to the school growing up.

In 1995, Culpepper's first year of college, Florida State began the season as the nation's consensus #1 team and beat Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. The Hurricanes won the Big East despite their first three-loss season in years. In Gainesville, Culpepper's hometown Gators ran the table during the regular season and played in their first National Championship game.

Amidst all this excitement, Daunte Culpepper was nowhere to be found. The prized prospect had landed in Orlando, FL, a town better known for Walt Disney World than competitive college football. His team?

The University of Central Florida Knights--a Division III football school since it first fielded a team in 1979.

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How does a top high school football player from Florida end up playing college ball at a D-III school?

It's unknown what Culpepper scored on the SAT, and since Division 1 uses a sliding standard for minimum SAT scores based on the applicant's high school GPA, it's difficult even to speculate. Here, however, is what we know:

Culpepper's GPA was below 3.55, since a GPA of 3.55 or above exempts applicants from the minimum SAT requirement (or, rather, drops the requirement to 400--the lowest score possible).

As of 2008, all Division II athletes must score a combined 820 (Math + Verbal) on the SAT. I believe it is fair to assume Culpepper scored below 820 since he enrolled in a D-III school rather than D-II. Possibly well below, since this standard may gone up since Culpepper entered college in 1995.

Once again, these standards are probably not the exact ones Culpepper failed to make, but a reasonable approximation thereof. At any rate, Culpepper's SAT score--probably somewhere in the 600-800 range--combined with his poor (but good enough to graduate!) GPA prevented him from playing for any D-I or D-II schools.

D-III, on the other hand, has no eligibility standards other than those imposed by the school itself, which is no doubt how Daunte found himself as the biggest, baddest man in Orlando during the fall of 1995.

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Although statistics are unavailable for Culpepper's freshman year in D-III, it is safe to assume he did everything but ejaculate onto opposing mascots. Having watched a couple of D-III football games, and attended classes with a number of D-III football players, I don't need John Clayton's shriveled testicles to imagine the kind of nuclear fallout Culpepper unleashed on those poor, unsuspecting "scholar athletes."

That is because Culpepper is nothing short of human wrecking ball. Listed at 6'4 and 264 pounds, Culpepper runs the 40 in 4.6, and I actually do need a calculator to compute the amount of force His Blackness meted out on would-be tacklers. I'm not actually going to do the calculation, but needless to say, it's a lot of Newtons--and I don't mean Fig Newtons (although I'm sure Culpepper accounts for a lot of those, too).

During Culpepper's sophomore year, UCF conveniently jumped to D-I, undoubtedly buoyed by lobbying from people around D-III: coaches, athletics directors, hospital staff, and parents of pregnant cheerleaders who thought that this kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen at Emory, goddammit!

The rest of Culpepper's college career was a blur of big hits, unprotected sex, and more big hits.

As the man says: "We've got a linebacker playing quarterback!"

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Culpepper wrapped up a four-year career at UCF with 84 passing touchdowns against 42 interceptions and entered the NFL Draft in 1999. Luckily for Daunte, this was the year that NFL GMs embraced the quarterblack, as Culpepper went 11th overall but somehow managed to be the third black quarterback taken (behind Syracuse legend-turned-Campbell's Chunky Soup enthusiast Donovan McNabb and Frankfurt Galaxy-turned-Calgary Stampeder Akili Smith). Minnesota had already blazed the quarterblack trail with Randall Cunningham and elected to push it to the limit with a physical freak worthy of Makhtar's most private desires.

Culpepper brought a combination of size and speed to the quarterback position that no one had ever seen before. Alongside Randy Moss and Cris Carter, Culpepper's Vikings won 11 games, and the second-year QB out of Orlando led the league with 33 TD passes.

For the next few seasons, Culpepper's value seesawed back and forth, but in 2004 he realized his ample potential with a season that left Makhtar with a blistered stump of a lightswitch and many sleepless nights. 

Overshadowed to some degree by Peyton Manning's better, more successful Colts team, Brother Culpepper turned in a campaign that was in many ways equal to Manning's:

69.2 completion %

5,123 all-purpose yards (an NFL record)

41 all-purpose TDs

110.9 QB rating

1 Star Wars reference ("I feel like a Jedi Knight,"  he said following the Pro Bowl)

In 2005, Makhtar eagerly predicted Culpepper would surpass his own lofty heights, penciling in the following fantasy stats with his one available hand:

4,950 passing yards

500 rushing yards

48 touchdowns

Already the victim of the Madden Curse in 2002, Culpepper now cruelly fell victim to the less notable Makhtar Curse, where everything Makhtar loves is immediately taken from him. (Note: The scope and power of this curse is capable of everything from robbing Daunte Culpepper of his effectiveness as a football player to driving relatively stable girls to volatile and unpredictable decisions, like relinquishing employment to move back in with her parents without warning).

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Still, there were high hopes yet for Culpepper, as he was just a year removed from his historic season. But off-the-field incidents--including the now-famous boat scandal, where Culpepper engaged in four-way sexual intercourse with two women and one gay dude, with the proviso that the dude was not allowed to penetrate or otherwise ejaculate on the star QB but could help himself to any fondling thereof during the duration of said four-way--forced the Vikings to shop him around the league. Only 29, it seemed that Culpepper had plenty of juice left in the tank, but that a change of scenery might be in order.

The Dolphins, helmed by second-year coach Nick Saban--the same man who recruited JaMarcus Russell at LSU--decided that Culpepper would be his franchise QB, forgoing a done deal with then-free agent Drew Brees. For Culpepper, this was one of his happiest moments: a chance not only to return to his home state and play in front of his family but also to show the Vikings that his best days were ahead, illicit four-way sex scandal or not.

Immediately, it became clear that Saban's fetish for behemoth black quarterbacks was less successful in the NFL than it had been in college. Culpepper struggled while Brees soared to new heights, and soon, Daunte found himself injured and playing behind the likes of Joey Harrington and Miss Cleo Lemon.

The Miami experiment ended almost as quickly as it started, as Culpepper was in and out in one year, leaving behind just one trace of his tenure with the Dolphins:

In the meantime, Daunte learned a valuable lesson: you can't go home again. (Also, sucking dick isn't as fun in front of all your friends and family).

Broken, defeated, a shell of his former glory, Culpepper took refuge in the one place where talentless freak athletes will always find sanctuary:

The Oakland Raiders.

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By now, we've come full circle, and the astute readers of this blog will have seen the writing on the wall:

Banished from Minnesota, exiled from Miami, Culpepper came to Oakland, where he was slated to mentor--but it can't be...

JaMarcus Russell, the former Sabanite who--at 6'6 and 260 pounds--was tabbed as the evolutionary Culpepper! Instead, he proved to be the devolution of Daunte, as his learning disabilities and the severity of his mental retardation dwarfed even the Culpepper Standard ("too dumb for D-I").

Between the two of them (and Josh McCown!), the Raiders wound up 4-12, although Culpepper got a measure of vengeance by scoring 5 TDs in a victory over the Dolphins team that spurned him.

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Now, as Culpepper toils for Detroit in the twilight of his career, he will likely look at back at his lost year in Miami as the nadir of his time in football. However, if there is any solace to be found in schadenfreude, Culpepper can take pleasure in JaMarcus Russell's failures, secure in the knowledge that his transcendent peak convinced people around the NFL that they couldn't afford to pass on the Next Daunte Culpepper.