Saturday, February 21, 2009
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Matthew Stafford refuses to accept the title of second best. Mark Sanchez won’t like it either.
So the NFL draft’s two top-rated quarterbacks will spend the next two months proving who is better.
Stafford and Sanchez insist this high-stakes duel will not devolve into a personal battle despite the temptation to make this about money, prestige and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be the first quarterback selected in the 2009 draft. They figure football should never ruin a good friendship.
“Of course I think that [I should go first], and he should think that, too,” Sanchez said Friday at the NFL’s annual scouting combine in Indianapolis. “All I want to be is the best and No. 1 is the best, so that’s what I want to be.”
Most draft analysts believe Stafford, a three-year starter at Georgia, holds the lead. They claim he’s the top quarterback in the class and a possible No. 1 selection in April.
Sanchez’s supporters point to Southern Cal’s offense, the track record of recent Trojan quarterbacks in the NFL and believe that experience makes Sanchez a better choice even though he didn’t win the starting job till last summer.
The decision rests with the scouts and general managers who scrutinize everything from the obvious, like arm strength, to the minute, like hand measurements.
But the quarterbacks embrace the competition.
“We’re having fun with it, trying to keep it lighthearted,” said Stafford, who measured in at 6-foot-2, 225 pounds.