Why You May Want to Reject Cam Newton as Your Next Rental Tenant

"I could be wrong on him (Lamar Jackson), and I hope I am. I hope he succeeds as a quarterback. But I also go back to, if he's going to miss, why is he going to miss. You don't make a living as a quarterback running in the National Football League," Polian said. "Cam [Newton] is the exception. You try to take exceptions and say they're the rule: they're not. Bill Parcells taught me that a long time ago. Parcells often said, if you have one or two exceptions on your team, you'll end up with a team full of exceptions. You can't make a living with those guys. You get one every now and then but it's hard to do it."

(Former Indianapolis Colts General Manager Bill Polian on ex-Louisville quarterback and current 2018 NFL draft prospect, Lamar Jackson)

 

Predicting the success rate of college football players coming into the National Football League is hard.  It’s so hard, in fact, that talent evaluators who do this for a living at the highest level are frequently wrong; and they don’t get fired because everyone expects them to be wrong!  The key in their profession is to be right more often than they are wrong, especially on the most important and expensive positions, like quarterback. 

 

Bill Polian, quoted above recently, is in the NFL Hall of Fame largely because he evaluated talent better than his peers.  He makes the point that Lamar Jackson is extremely talented; he won the Heisman Trophy 2 years ago as the best player in college football!  But much of his productivity was based on his electric running of the football.  His passing, however, is not overly accurate and great accuracy is typically what makes quarterbacks successful in the NFL.

 

Now the Carolina Panthers quarterback, Cam Newton, is an exception.  He is an awesome quarterback (2015 NFL MVP- go Panthers!) but is not an overly accurate passer.  But his ability to run is what gives him the edge over other more accurate quarterbacks. 

 

Polian just doesn’t believe that exceptions are a solid way to build a football team. 

 

I believe it is the same way with rental tenants.  We screen prospective tenants on credit scores, criminal background, income, and past landlord reports.  Sometimes tenants have some poor results in one or more of these areas.  This can be understandable; sometimes bad things happen to normally reliable people and an argument can be made that they shouldn’t be unacceptable to landlords based on an unfortunate life occurrence (job loss, illness, divorce, etc.).

 

However, should a prior eviction or bankruptcy be ignored?  How about bad credit or a non-positive landlord report?  Isn’t it possible that the prospective tenant is an exception and will actually be a great tenant going forward?

 

Yes, it is possible.  And we’ve had many tenants who fit this mold over the years.

 

But it is also true that the tenants we’ve had that had great credit scores and landlord reports almost always are great tenants for us.  And the ones that we’ve had issues with seem to have had some areas that they were less than stellar in when we’ve ran their applications.

 

Property management can be really easy when the houses are filled with great tenants who care for the homes and pay their rent on time.  Conversely, it can be really difficult when they don’t.

 

Cam Newton is an exception that worked out well for the Panthers (and hopefully Lamar Jackson will be one too in the NFL).  But counting on exceptions to work out well to fill the entire team is a tall bill (so says another Hall-of-Famer, Coach Bill Parcells).

 

Be careful on how many exceptions are approved as tenants in your rental homes.  Cam worked out well, but no one was positive he would when he first got drafted.  We all want to give exceptions the benefit of the doubt, but it is a far riskier play than sticking with safer, traditional candidates.

 

Happy Landlording!