Saturday, February 25, 2006

Winston Justice

Any team with needs to address on the offensive line has to give some consideration to USC Tackle Winston Justice, and he's been mentioned more than a few times as a possible first round selection for the Browns. Justice is another guy with huge upside potential, but he is also regarded as being pretty raw. He only started playing football during his sophomore year at Long Beach Poly High School. Justice learned fast during his tenure with the Jackrabbits, and had matured enough as a player to start 12 games during his freshman year with the Trojans.

At 6'6" and 300 lbs., Justice is a bit undersized for the Tackle position by NFL standards. He played Right Tackle at USC, but bear in mind that Leinart is left handed, so he's done backside protection his entire college career. He also suffered from missing the entire 2004 season, for reasons I'll tell you about in a second, and supposedly looked bad at times last season.

Still, the biggest issues with Justice aren't on the field, but off. Justice was suspended for the entire 2004 season after pleading no contest to charges arising out of brandishing what turned out to be a pellet gun during a dispute with another student. This came on the heels of another no contest plea to a misdemeanor count of solicitation of prostitution. These aren't particularly heinous crimes by NFL standards, but if the Browns are thinking seriously about Justice, they better make sure they do their homework on these issues.

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