Mike: UW’s quarterback should declare for the NFL draft ASAP
Nov 16, 2019, 10:27 PM | Updated: Oct 1, 2024, 11:14 am

UW quarterback Jacob Eason. (Getty Images)
(Getty Images)
Let me show you a paragraph from today鈥檚 Seattle Times:
But by returning to the Huskies for one more season, the Lake Stevens native can not only improve his draft stock, he can create the legacy at UW that eluded him in 2019. Eason is just a guy right now, but if he returns, he can leave as the man.
This is a story about Jacob Eason, the uber-talented Huskies quarterback . The author, Seattle Times sports columnist Matt Calkins, why the young man should walk away from millions of dollars and straight into your ambitions for the UDub鈥檚 2020 football season.
It鈥檚 not just a lousy idea; It runs counter to what we should be telling this young man. If he were in the computer science department, if he were a singer, and someone offered him before getting his degree, what would we say?
Walk away from generational wealth so you can entertain fans 鈥 who can鈥檛 legally pay you 鈥 for another year and risk your financial security? For a legacy that matters most to the people who didn鈥檛 even create it?
And why is it that are people who don鈥檛 create legacies always so want to be in charge of other people鈥檚?
Does Jacob Eason owe them anything?
No.
If the NFL and 鈥 in other words like it billion-dollar, free-labor minor league 鈥 then NFL-grade athletes in the system should take that lesson from their elders and treat it in a similar fashion.
Two of the richest men in the country 鈥 Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg 鈥 dropped out of school when an opportunity seemed too good to pass up.
Does anyone whine about what they owe the fans of both schools? Does anyone think about their collegiate legacies?
Exactly. Go grab the money, Jacob. And if it doesn鈥檛 work out in the pros use one sixtieth of that first-round dough to get yourself some schooling wherever you choose.
Or just live off the interest. Not the fan鈥檚 interest, which is what the legacy police argue. The money鈥檚 interest.
That鈥檚 interest you can actually bank on.
Tell me I鈥檓 wrong.