As I understand it, Titus had issues mid-way through college, but then there were 2 years where he supposedly put his problems behind him. There were a lot of feel-good redemption stories around the time we drafted him. I think a lot this is a total crapshoot--if you only take guys with squeaky-clean records, then there probably won't a whole lot of people left on your draft board.

I agree that it's sort of a crapshoot, but a good interviewer should be able to tell who has, who will, and who won't grow up and mature at the next level. That's huge, and it's something that we seem terrible at. Further, other teams can seem to take problem kids and "fix" them, again, that's something we fall terribly short at. Our mentoring program, or assimilation program, whatever it is, is severely lacking.

I can't believe that Titus could look a trained professional in the eye prior to the draft and make them believe that he's grown up, matured and moved past his problems.

And those were 'trained interviewers'. Just because he had issues after going to college and being 18 (many, many kids do) doesn't mean he will always be problematic. He cleaned up his act for 2 years. Some go back to their ways, some don't. It didnt work with an alcoholic at work. Chick was clean for 6 months and within 3 months of starting work, she blew a .23 while at work...