Fatty McButterpants Just Don't Care!

It seems simple. You go to college in order to get a job. If you're lucky and know exactly what you want to do when you leave college, you can focus solely on working in that direction while your peers switch majors 34 times in order to 'find themselves'.

If you're very lucky, that career you want to do is in a high paying field.

If you're super very lucky, you are good enough at football to enter the high-paying life style of a top draft pick in the NFL.

And that's where we are today: Andre Smith is a super lucky giant who is blessed with being roughly the size of a Frigidaire (6'4" and 340 pounds) while still owning some athletic ability. He's on the short list of must haves for NFL teams: a bulldozer for the offensive line.

Most of us will never reach 340 pounds even if we dine solely on Krispy Kreme milkshakes. It's one of two traits football coaches can't teach: size and speed. In other words, Smith is one lucky large man.

He was so good in college that he didn't even need to stay for a senior year. He was slated to be a top pick in this year's NFL draft and ensuring him of economic stability at age 22. That's worth repeating: DURING ONE OF THE WORST RECESSIONS IN RECENT U.S. HISTORY, HE WILL BE A MILLIONAIRE AT AGE 22.

All he needed to do was stay in shape and show what he could do at the NFL combine.

Ooops.

That was apparently too much for Smith as he showed up to the NFL Combine way out of shape and decided not to take part in any drills. But that wasn't enough of a blow to his stock. He needed to completely scorch the earth at the NFL combine by just up and flying back to Alabama without telling anyone.

Anyone want a big strong lineman who may or may not make it to practice everyday?

I know the NFL is a soulless, pride crushing league. They parade new draftees around like cattle and point out every thing that might be wrong with them. You have to be mentally ready to go through that nonsense.

So why would Smith forgo a year of college to get there if he didn't want to deal with it? It doesn't take a genius to realize that there is nothing more nocuous to NFL Draft stock than flakiness. He had a free year left to screw around where he would literally be a big man on campus at Alabama. Is Nick Saban that bad?

The odds are Smith just cost himself about $20 million and a reputation by either listening to a greedy agent or by just following his wallet instead of his heart. That's a mistake that might make him do the Truffle Shuffle in anger when he realized what he's done to his draft stock.

He probably won't feel too bad though. He's still going to be a millionaire. Unless, of course, he goes AWOL again. The chicken fried steak is calling....