Originally posted by JoseCortez:
I hate to break it to you guys, but lombardi is right. There is waaay too much evidence to suggest otherwise. If there were no leaks how did schefter know that it was trey lance gaining steam at the end? He didn't need to report it, he didn't need to make that up. He could have stuck with his mac jones prediction. They caved and now we have to hope that it works out. I'm disappointed in the whole process, starting with the trade up. I think shanahan panicked. I think giving up two first rounders was a terrible move. Just all around disappointed.
Real simple:
Scouts — who were NOT told by Lynch and Shanahan who they favored — ranted to their family members because they felt like Lynch and Shanahan weren't listening, and so THEY assumed it was Jones, and then family or friends were contacted by media.
The HUGE MISTAKE that was made in this hypothetical scenario (which I believe is very likely right) is that the scouts failed to realize Shanahan was DELIBERATELY vague and stoic in the meetings because he (a) wanted unbiased reports on the prospects and (b) didn't want ANY leaks getting to a rival team. He even said in his career teams have jumped right in from of his team and taken his guy because of these leaks.
In short, we have SCOUTS misunderstanding Shanahan's stoicism as support for Jones (because the scouts in question were arguing for Fields or Lance), them ranting about it to someone, and media heads hearing it that way.
There's the sources of your "evidence." It was speculation made by people who were attempting to read Shanahan — who was DELIBERATELY being obtuse — which made its way to the media and was then taken as gospel, when all along it was a misunderstanding.
That is BY FAR the most likely scenario, in some form or another, outside of media people just making stuff up or getting their information from OTHER teams (which us suspect anyway).
