Santos Not Sure He’ll Be in Party Mood as Draft Proceeds

The reason nothing unusual is planned for Sunday at the Santos household is simple. Todd Santos is not sure anything special will happen.

Santos may be the leading passer in major-college history, but when it comes to the National Football League draft, he has as much trouble judging his professional worth as those who make a living doing so.

Santos is so unsure of his status that he cannot say with certainty that he still won’t be waiting for a telephone call when the NFL completes the first four rounds of its two-day draft Sunday.

“It would be nice to go the first day,” he said this week, “but I’m not counting on it.”

So instead of planning a Sunday party, Santos and his family will spend the day watching the draft on television at their home in Selma, Calif., hoping they do not have to wait until Monday to hear his name. The chances of that are as uncertain as the opinions on Santos’ NFL value.

Depending upon who is speaking, Santos, who completed his college career with 11,425 passing yards, is either the best available college quarterback in the country or the most overrated.

National Football Scouting, the organization that scouts players for 19 of the 28 NFL teams, rates Santos as the former. But Joel Buchsbaum, an independent draft expert from New York, says that designation only qualifies Santos for the overrated label.

“Santos is good enough to play in the NFL but is not special and should not be rated as the top quarterback in the draft,” Buchsbaum wrote in the May issue of Pro Football Weekly.

Buchsbaum ranked Santos sixth among the quarterbacks behind Chris Chandler of Washington, Mike Perez of San Jose State, Scott Secules of Virginia, Stan Humphries of Northeast Louisiana and Tom Tupa of Ohio State.

Confused? So is Santos. He has spent the past few weeks at his parents’ home in Selma working out and wondering what all the prognostications mean. His conclusion is simple.

What happens will happen.

“I hear so many different things,” he said. “I’ll just wait and see.”

Santos said he has not gauged any special interest in him by any team, although Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle did travel to Selma to work him out. Santos is not alone in wondering what is in store for him.

Bill Duffy, one of Santos’ agents with Santa Clara-based Duffy, Pelosi and Associates, said he, too, does not know what to make of Santos’ status.

“I hear so many different things,” Duffy said. “I hear that this is a weak year for quarterbacks. Earlier, scouts were questioning his arm strength, but that is not true. Everything I take with a grain of salt because teams always need quarterbacks, and quarterback is a hard position to fill. Somebody is going to use a high pick for a quarterback.”

The Chargers, of course, are one of the teams seeking a quarterback. But they do not expect that Santos or any of the others can provide the kind of help they need.

“There doesn’t seem to be a quarterback that is going to come out and be an immediate impact player or a starter,” said Al Saunders, Charger coach.

Santos does not take the Chargers’ position as criticism of his abilities. He prefers to look at the situation as one in which the Chargers already have the help they need.

“I know they like Mark Vlasic, and they just traded for Mark Malone,” Santos said. “If they draft a quarterback, I don’t think it will be until the later rounds.”

And if they do, Santos is hoping, though not expecting, to be long gone.