Is there a better time of the NFL year than the draft?
Yes, actually most of it is  better. Since the end of the NFL season, we’ve heard about nothing but arrests, 40-yard dash times and mock drafts. Well, there was a small window of time when free agency was buzzing, but it quickly faded to more draft speculation.
The biggest question mark for many people, as in most NFL drafts, rests with who the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will take with the No. 1 overall pick.
It seems pretty obvious they will pick a quarterback unless they plan on starting Mike Glennon or Seth Lobato. Glennon isn’t going to bring home a Lombardi Trophy as a starter unless he takes the Trent Dilfer route, and I don’t know who Lobato is, so I’m going to say the Bucs pick a signal-caller.
The top contenders are the last two Heisman Trophy winners — Florida State’s Jameis Winston and Oregon’s Marcus Mariota.
On the field, both quarterbacks had great success and could both be great in the NFL. But off the field, fans’ perspectives are on totally different sides of the spectrum.
Fans see Mariota as a family man from Hawaii who is as humble as Gandhi. He is always giving other people credit and never utters a bad word. 
During the weather delay of Saturday’s LSU-Texas A&M baseball game, ESPN aired an episode of Jon Gruden’s QB Camp with Mariota. No matter how hard Gruden tried to get under his skin, Mariota would crack a smile, shrug his shoulders and say it didn’t bother him.
Then, there’s Winston. You know him because you hate him. He comes off as cocky, arrogant, pompous, etc. He had multiple run-ins with the law, including his alleged sexual assault and shoplifting crab legs from a Publix. Florida State suspended Winston for one game because he stood up on a table in the student union and shouted things I won’t write in this paper.
I’ve never met either of these guys, so there’s no way for me to determine if these character analyses are correct. But that’s how the public sees them.
In my non-professional opinion, Winston is more NFL-ready than Mariota. He ran a pro-style offense and was incredible with professional-level wide receiver in Kelvin Benjamin during his freshman season. If I’m Tampa Bay, I’d be ecstatic to pair him with a young, top-notch pass catcher like Mike Evans and an offense he’s more familiar with than Mariota would be.
Many will argue against Winston for his off-field problems because he’s responsible for the success of a franchise. They’d say, “How could an owner or general manager feel comfortable giving their billion-dollar project to someone with this many issues?”
It’s simple. Because off-field issues don’t hinder on-field results. The old adage is winning cures everything, and as long as Winston can do that and not get suspended, the Bucs will be more than happy with this selection.
Don’t believe me? Look further down in the draft. 
LSU’s own Jalen Collins is a 6-foot-1 cornerback who runs a 4.48 40-yard dash. That combination of size and speed have made him a hot commodity and quickly pushed him into the late first round in most mock drafts.
On Friday, NFL.com’s Albert Breer tweeted four teams had informed him Collins failed multiple drug test in his time in Baton Rouge. His draft stock has barely budged since, and he is still expected to go off the board at the end of the first or maybe the beginning of the second round. It had almost no effect because of his size and speed. 
If you don’t believe that because it’s just “pre-draft speculation,” maybe the case of Adrian Peterson will change your mind. He missed almost all of last season because of a child abuse arrest.
He was reinstated to the league April 16, and every team would love to have him. They don’t care about his past mistakes, just his MVP-level production.
As fans or media, we see players with off-field issues as the bad seeds destined to kill a team’s chemistry, but NFL teams care more about how they affect the on-field product.
Brian Pellerin is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Kenner, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @Pellerin_TDR.