Leinart picked (way) below where he should have gone?

Tim Laydon in CNNSI questions why Leinart went so low in the draft. An obvious mistake if you look how he's playing for St. Louis.

"If only the pundits and at least nine NFL teams only understood last April that Matt Leinart didn't win all those games at USC with a weak arm or a weak stomach. Leinart, cool five o'clock shadow and cool entourage in waiting, was allowed to drift embarrassingly close to the middle of the first round because it had been determined by the draft machinery that he lacked arm strength, foot speed and some other intangibles (toughness, intelligence ... which of these things had Leinart not proven over and over again at USC?) of some sort.

Two recollections: First time I talked to Leinart. He was a couple weeks shy of his first start as a sophomore at USC. Taking over for Carson Palmer, Leinart was walking into the plains of Auburn, untested, thrown to the Tigers. I talked to him and he was as cool and confident as he is today. Didn't seem to mean much at the time, but you look back and there you go. It was no act.

Right after Leinart's senior year, I spent time with USC offensive coordinator Norm Chow. We watched some of USC's dismantling of Oklahoma in the national championship game and Chow, who would soon leave for the NFL, raved about Leinart's progress as a quarterback. Still, nine teams saw a weak-armed Cali-boy.

If only we in the media -- and that's all media -- were a little more patient and not so quick to build and then jump on bandwagons, we might see the flaws in early-season flashes."