Former MSU quarterback faces uncertain future

They say that Allen Park is where promising football players go to die. For proof, see Mike Williams, Joey Harrington and Charles Rogers.

But as far as I’m concerned, no one’s corpse smells worse than Drew Stanton’s. At least Williams, Harrington and Rogers were given a chance to prove how worthless they truly are. Stanton, on the other hand, hasn’t even seen the field.

Don’t get me wrong, I truly felt the Farmington Hills native and MSU graduate had the opportunity to be a successful NFL quarterback. When the Detroit Lions selected him in the second round of the 2007 NFL draft, I clamored with joy. Ah, to be young and naive.

Stanton arrived at Allen Park eager to showcase his myriad skills. But former offensive coordinator Mike Martz greeted him at the door, took two whiffs of the kid and decided he wasn’t good enough.

Martz overhauled Stanton’s mechanics like a mad scientist repairing his poorly-wired robot. He modified everything from Stanton’s footwork and delivery to the way he combed his hair and brushed his teeth.

“He changed everything, and I didn’t really understand why and I never really got explanations on how to work on it,” Stanton told the Detroit Free Press earlier this month. “It was one of those things, ‘Well, you’re just doing this wrong.’”

Suffice to say, Martz’s experiment blew up in his face. Shocking, I know.

Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that Stanton’s season ended on the third day of training camp, when stiffness and swelling in his knee demanded surgery and a subsequent trip to injured reserve. Although Stanton would have liked to play, at least when he was on the IR, he couldn’t be exposed to Martz’s incessant tendency to render a promising player damaged goods.

Fortunately for Stanton, Martz is now gone. He’s taken his crazy bag of tricks to San Francisco, where he can use them on another promising young quarterback, Alex Smith.

The 3,000-mile buffer zone should give Stanton enough breathing room to learn the ropes of a new offensive system.

Under the tutelage of new offensive coordinator Jim Colletto and quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler, Stanton is once again learning a new set of mechanics. Stanton said the new mechanics are closer to what they were at MSU, but he’s still got a lot of learning to do.

“If something’s not clicking or I’m not getting it, (they try) to go about it a different way to make sure I’m understanding,” Stanton told the Free Press. “It’s really refreshing from that standpoint, definitely, being able to communicate with somebody on that level.”

Although it’s encouraging that Stanton is finally feeling comfortable in his Honolulu Blue uniform, I can’t help but feel like it’s a little too late for him to revive his career.

I’m not ready to break out the body bag, but I don’t see Stanton recovering from the spell of physical injuries and psychological distress that have marred his burgeoning NFL career.

I don’t have his Wonderlic scores or academic transcript to prove it, but Stanton is a pretty intelligent guy. Hopefully he can soak up everything he learns, stay on the field, and even take some snaps this season.

But even if all those chips fall into place, one inevitable detail will plague Stanton throughout the season: he’s a Lion.

Enough said.

Alex Altman is the Sports/Lifestyle Editor for The State News. He can be reached at altmanal@msu.edu .

Published on Thursday, May 22, 2008