We hear about lock outs all the time. Every 3-4 years there is talk of one in one of the major sports. I don't even know why it's a story anymore--the story should just be what comes from it, not even the discussion surrounding it. When it comes down to it, these guys are business men. They're not stupid enough to sit through a lock out these days--one side will give like always and in the end any talk of a lock out will just be wasted paper.

Cat Food Flambe' wrote: I know absolutely nothing about Gibson's academic body of work (he may be a potential Rhodes Scholar for all I know) - but as a whole, an amazing number of the borderline NFL bailouts do so with a eye toward impending doom in terms of grades - or an utter distaste for the classroom work.

Pretty sure I heard that Gibson is set to graduate at the end of this academic year. The fact that he would already be getting his degree was rumored to have played in a role in his decision to leave.

http://www.cleveland.com/osu/index.ssf/2010/01/with_tressels_blessing_thaddeu.html

Yep, this link says that he's on track to graduate this June. Reading through the article after the fact really makes me wish he would have returned though. He received a 2nd round projection from scouts, and Tressel encouraged him to leave because of that. If he had been projected lower (which is where he ended up actually being drafted), Tressel would have recommended that he return to school. In the end, Gibson is in a great situation with the Steelers and he'll still be getting paid. If he's successful enough, he'll earn quite a bit of money in the NFL, but he will always have a college degree to fall back on if things don't work out.

The way our Defensive line played at the spring game maybe Gibson saw the writing on the wall, we played awfully well yesterday

I think that most players were overrate in the draft this year. Since there will likely be an uncapped year and a lockout coming soon, more players than normal left early last year making this a very deep draft field, deeper than normal. There were a lot of guys taken a round or two later than most predicted them to, and I think that is simply because there were more players to choose from. When you petition the advisory committee for a draft grade before deciding to leave early, they based it on a normal draft year and this simply wasn't a normal draft year meaning that most players got draft grades a lot better than where they actually ended up.

GRRRRR! He should have stayed. Drafted late... OSU is returning an unbelievably absurd amount of talent next season... ughhhh he will be sorely missed.