Last week was all about how the Cincinnati Bearcats have been successful at getting players into the NFL and watching them compete with the best of the best. However, as any college program can say, it doesn’t always work out the way that they foresee. Not every player with expectations, high or low, finds themselves able to compete amongst the “men,” despite their success amongst the “boys.”
There are so many reasons careers don’t work out, such as injuries, simply being physically unprepared, and, likely the most common reason: psychological struggles. Today is all about those players and keeping up with our cliché: the bad and the ugly.
Unfortunately for Cincinnati, a lot of the lack of success has been a little more recently. Injuries have derailed a season or more for many players, like Travis Kelce and Derek Wolfe. Yes, I did talk about Kelce in my top players last week, but that’s based off the 2014 season. After missing all of his rookie season, it’s hard to not have been concerned about his long-term career, much as people could be feeling about Wolfe after his 2013 season. A spinal cord injury he suffered during the preseason and two bouts of food poisoning caused Wolfe to lose weight and effectiveness when he could actually be on the field. He would eventually be placed on injured reserve after a seizure that he suffered because of the spinal cord injury. Wolfe showed signs of promise in 2014, but not enough in my eyes to get off this list.
The next three were once a three-headed monster offensively for the ‘Cats taking us from the bad to the ugly. Starting with the most recent draftee of the three, running back Isaiah Pead was taken in the second round of the 2012 draft to be the back in waiting behind three-time Pro Bowler and franchise leader in rushing yards Steven Jackson. Since that time, however, Pead has mustered up just 75 rushing yards and no touchdowns. Zac Stacy and Benjamin Cunningham have passed him up on the depth chart where he didn’t even have a carry last season. Likely, Pead’s only chance to have success is by changing teams, but the lifespan of a running back in the NFL is so short that likely Pead will be passed up by younger and cheaper backs.
Former teammate, both collegiately and professionally, Mardy Gilyard, never showed up in the way draft experts expected, either. Gilyard, a fourth-round pick in 2010 by none other than the St. Louis Rams (apparently we should only trust the Philadelphia Eagles when it comes to Bearcats players and hope that the Rams don’t take them if we want them to succeed), couldn’t find his way to the field often enough to prove that he could play at the NFL level. Being a little undersized for the position may have been a factor in that, but after his rookie year, Gilyard jumped between three NFL teams without making the official roster before the season. Gilyard has found himself in both the Canadian Football League and Arena Football League for the last two years without much to show for it.
However, the worst story to tell (the “ugly”) goes out to quarterback Tony Pike. Before the 2010 draft, some experts were describing Pike as being one of the top five quarterbacks in the draft. However, Pike would fall to the 11th quarterback off the board, going as a compensatory pick of the sixth-round to the Carolina Panthers.
Right off the bat, Pike had to have been frustrated as being the second rookie quarterback taken by the Panthers after they took Jimmy Clausen out of Notre Dame in the second round. Pike would immediately become a backup quarterback for the long-term future with the mindset that Clausen would be a successful quarterback. Pike looked like he would receive the chance to play when the Panthers got off to a 1-8 start and both Clausen and Matt Moore would be unable to play against the Baltimore Ravens. Would Pike finally get the chance to show what he has? Nope. Instead, the Panthers called up Brian St. Pierre, who was on his couch the week before to play against the Ravens.
Rather than a guy who had been in the system for six months, the Panthers decided it made more sense to rely on a guy who’d been in the system for less than a week. Go figure. A little over a year later, Pike decides to retire from football after just two professional seasons. In my eyes, it doesn’t get any uglier than that.
I’m happy to say that, in recent years, there are more good stories to tell than bad ones. Now that does include no player from Cincinnati being drafted in 2014, and it’s very possible to have a repeat here in 2015. Hopefully, that will allow for some good stories for players without the high expectations to have successful careers.
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