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Marcus Mariota got the strangest pre-draft 'red flag' possible

Frank Schwab
·NFL writer

Well, it has all come full circle when it comes to the draft game of determining what is a red flag for a prospect.

You know the deal, a college player has an arrest or a failed drug test or got kicked off the team, it's a red flag. Too many red flags and you move down. Half of the draft chatter in April is either about hips, upside or red flags. Or, as it turns out with Marcus Mariota, too few red flags are a red flag.

Huh?

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Yeah, this is a doozy. Brett McMurphy of ESPN apparently talked to Oregon coach Mark Helfrich during Helfrich's visit to the network on Wednesday. And McMurphy said that a NFL coach and general manager told Helfrich that the fact that Mariota had no red flags at all — like, apparently he didn't even lag in returning text messages or chew his nails or fail to clear his dirty dishes after dinner or anything at all that bothers anyone — was in itself a red flag.

To repeat: No red flags for Mariota was a red flag.

Now, apparently these folks weren't with the Tennessee Titans, because the Titans took last year's Heisman Trophy winner second overall. But the story is hilarious; it's like a "Seinfeld" episode.

And it's also kind of funny that while we knew Mariota was a super polite, good-off-the-field draft prospect, we didn't realize he was pretty much immaculate. I mean, an overwhelming majority of draft prospects don't have any RED FLAGS, for anything you'd have to take a mug shot for anyway. For Mariota to be remarkable that he has absolutely no red flags at all, it means that almost everyone else has at least one thing that draws the red flag from NFL teams. Not Mariota. Perhaps the blinding halo around Mariota's head is what caused NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to call him "Mariodo" on draft night.

Remember this next year, when we're having the annual talk about about red flags, that maybe someone has a red flag because they have no red flags. Cue the "Seinfeld" theme.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!