Forgoing Bowl Games

After the disastrous knee injury Notre Dame LB Jaylon Smith suffered in last year's bowl game - that dropped his draft projection as a top 5 pick to the end of the first round - costing him approximately $20 million, it's no surprise that top NFL prospects are deciding that the risk of playing in a meaningless exhibition bowl simply isn't worth it. Especially since the players are the only ones not making any money off of the bowl game.

Now the number of players renouncing their bowl game has risen to 3 and Arizona Bruce Arians has said he would have "concerns" if a player didn't want to play in a bowl game. (To which profootballtalk pointed out that Arians wasn't so concerned about a player being suspended for smoking marijuana and missing a bowl game that he didn't draft Robert Nkemdiche.

This is a long-awaited development that's the direct result of the national championship playoff. The already extraneous college bowl system is even more meaningless except for the 3 games and 4 teams vying for the championship. 

Make no mistake - the decisions of Leonard Fournette, Christian McCaffrey (the son of a former NFL pro) and Shock Linwood are only the tip of the iceberg. I would expectx more college stars to choose the same route and those decisions could have serious repercussions in undermining the whole NCAA football slave labor system.  

Look for other NFL coaches to come out against the college players in the very near future and I wouldn't be surprised if the NCAA got involved in some way to try to stop the trend in the near future.