What better motivation for a young college elite athlete to stay in school than the threat of being drafted by the 0-16 Detroit Lions? Colt McCoy, Tim Tebow, and Sam Bradford will all avoid the possible disaster of ruining their professional football career with the Lions. If you don’t think that the possibility of playing for the Lions helped influence these star quarterbacks, you should think again. In 2008 Lions quarterbacks were sacked a total of 52 times. In 2007 Jon Kitna alone was sacked 51 times in a single season; compared to Eli Manning of the New York Giants who in both of the last two years was sacked only 27 times each season.

No college quarterback wants to be the next Joey Harrington or Andre Ware along with the other skill player busts that the Lions have had. Being drafted by the Lions would ensure a possible starting job at the start of the next season, but how attractive is starting for the Detroit Lions to a college quarterback? Bradford, McCoy and Tebow all play in places with beautiful weather, and their teams all have a chance at winning championships. None of those quarterbacks would be happy with moving to Detroit, more or less starting for the Lions.

A college quarterbacks ideal situation would include being drafted by a solid team with an unsure quarterback situation or one where the quarterback is getting ready to retire (unless it’s Brett Favre and they continue to come back year after year). Regardless of what a college player says are the reasons for his decision to stay with their college team for another year, there are outside factors such as what team is likely to draft them and of course how high they will be drafted. And it's not like quarterbacks haven't done this in the past. Rumor has it that Matt Leinart stayed an extra year at USC partly because he didn't want to get drafted by the 49ers.

Most of the media had Bradford going to the Lions in mock NFL drafts and Matthew Stafford being the next quarterback selected. Because of Sam Bradford’s decision to stay at Oklahoma, Matthew Stafford looks like the next victim of the Detroit Lions curse. Tebow, Bradford, and McCoy will be hot prospects in next year's draft, but for now, they all are able to avoid the Detroit Lions and stay in school, which despite the lack of guaranteed millions today, might benefit them more in the long run.