Strasburg's Hovering Nats

Everybody knows those kids. They're the ones with the parents watching them from every corner. Making them wear shoes around the house and sandals to the pool. Bundling them up in three layers of clothes during the winter and heavy-duty rain-suits in the middle of a storm.

The Washington Nationals treated prodigy pitcher Stephen Strasburg the same way.

And you know what happens to those kids? A sharp piece of glass find its way inside a shoe in the house and a bee stings a kid on the top of his foot at the pool. And the kids still contract pneumonia during the wintry rainstorms because they're too sanitized to have strong immunity.

Now Stephen Strasburg will undergo Tommy John surgery because the Nationals were too worried about his pitch count and not his throwing motion.

It's the sad tale of a promising pitcher who, even if his career is not over, may not come back the same dominant rookie he was earlier this summer.

NFL teams should take note of what happened to Strasburg. While the same method is not heavily practiced amongst MLB teams -- who want top prospects on the roster as soon as possible -- NFL teams popularized this method with promising rookie quarterbacks.

Take for instance JaMarcus Russell. Pegged as the quarterback of the future, Russell was pampered by the Oakland Raiders. By the time he was given the spotlight, he was both lazy and inept. Now he's a free agent struggling with drug problems.

Peyton Manning, on the other hand, started his rookie season with a mediocre performance but has since developed into one of the greatest players in NFL history. Even quarterbacks like Joe Flacco, Ben Roethlisberger, and Mark Sanchez have made huge impacts on their teams as rookies despite doubts from scouts on Draft Day.

If the Nationals ever recover from this catastrophe they should learn this: Just because Strasburg looks to be the best pitcher in franchise history doesn't mean his mechanics are perfect and sending him out on the mound with a diaper is going to preserve his career. You may have already ruined it.