The League

At this point more than ever in the history of scouting football players is there more media coverage tied to the NFL Draft. With that said, Florida quarterback Tim Tebow is among the greatest players to ever play college football, and as a result, is one of the most-highly decorated quarterbacks in both the history books as well as in the media. The swarms of fans in Mobile, Alabama this week are the largest that I've seen since I started coming here in 2008. The evaluation of Tim Tebow as a player is one that will be among the hardest that I've ever had, if not the hardest. A spread/option quarterback who is trying to become a starting quarterback in the NFL despite having a slow release, lacks elite arm strength, and his accuracy is inconsistent; add in messy footwork and a questionable ability to go through his progressions and reads, and we've got one of the most highly-questionable and highly-covered players in history.

In Day Two of practice, this was how I described Tebow's performance: "Tebow's footwork has gotten better, which is good to see. He's quicker in the pocket and can get deeper in his drop back than he ever did at Florida. His throwing motion hasn't changed much, if at all, and is still extremely slow and easy to predict when he is going to throw the ball. His accuracy was inconsistent today and his arm strength was decent. As a whole, he looked better than what I had expected, although I went in with low expectations because I know that he's a project. Working with Miami may be the best fit for Tebow of any other team in the NFL. They've already designed a "quarterback power" play in which the quarterback follows two lead blockers up the middle. This play will work for Tebow, Jarrett Brown, or Zac Robinson, but Tebow was the one that ran it in practice. As a whole, it's going to be a long process for Tebow to develop into a better quarterback. I'm slowly coming around to the idea that he could be a starter in the NFL, however it wouldn't happen for at least two years. This is just one step in the process of developing Tebow into an NFL quarterback."

It was said by one scout that it takes a quarterback at least 5,000 repetitions to fully embrace the change of mechanics in his throwing motion. Tebow is nowhere close to that 5,000. It's a process, one that will be long; however if he is patient, listens, and does what he is told by the coaches, then he will have a chance to succeed in the NFL. For a player who is craving to play quarterback in the NFL, there is no reason to see him as anything more than that as of now. If he fails at quarterback, then as an executive of the team that drafted him, you would explore where else you can use him. The team that drafts him must make up their mind ahead of time what position they want to play Tebow at; waiting around and not making up their mind will further stunt the development of Tebow and will continue to lower his chances of having success. It takes development to become an NFL quarterback; it's a long road, and Tebow just got started. It's way too early to say how well he will do in the NFL, and most teams won't be able to fully evaluate how well he will do in the pros, because his development will continue after he is drafted, when only one team is in control of him.
The coverage of Tim Tebow's journey to the NFL is one that many will remember for quite awhile. I don't think we've ever seen quite as unique of a situation as this one is. It's certainly going to be a fun ride up to late-April.

After his Combine, the journey to which we covered in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, Wake Forest linebacker Aaron Curry got ready for a short American tour, and prepared for some visitors to his home campus. At Wake Forest's Pro Day on March 23, 41 representatives from all 32 NFL teams showed up to watch Curry and his teammates in action. Curry stood on his 4.52-40 time and 25 bench press reps from the Combine, but he impressed in agility drills, cementing his status as the "safest pick in the draft".

Curry had pre-draft visits scheduled with the Lions, Chiefs, and Browns. The Seahawks actually canceled their visit with him -- it seems they'd seen enough to know what they were going to do -- and Curry spent the next month talking with most every team with the opportunity to draft him. There was no question that his talent and versatility was going to put him up in the draft as the first Top-4 linebacker taken since Penn State's LaVar Arrington was selected second overall in 2000. The only question was, where?

The perception was that because he played 98 percent strong-side linebacker at Wake, he'd be a better fit in a 4-3 defense, but Curry negated that notion when he spoke to the media at his Pro Day. "I'm an inside or an outside in a 4-3 or a 3-4," Curry said. "I have film of putting my hand in the dirt and rushing from the defensive end spot (as we detailed at the end of Part 2). I don't really have just one position where I feel like that's where I need to be. I just need to be anywhere on the defense and just be an impact player."

Still, one had to wonder how the Chiefs and Browns, the 3-4 defenses in the mix, would pony up somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million guaranteed for a possible inside linebacker. The Lions, looking to redefine their 4-3 defense after an 0-16 season with a new coaching staff and mindset, flirted heavily with the idea of Curry as the first overall pick even as they were negotiating with Georgia quarterback Matt Stafford. Head coach Jim Schwartz and defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham envisioned Curry joining a linebacker corps consisting of Ernie Sims and Julian Peterson, after Peterson had been traded from Seattle for defensive lineman Corey Redding.

As it turned out, Curry wouldn't play with Peterson -- he'd replace him.

They each have Super Bowl rings -- all four of them. As assistant coaches, head coaches, general managers. Each of them has risen to the top of his profession, and though each of the four will be analyzing the 2009 draft instead of participating in it, few would be surprised to see any of them in a war room in 2010. They are respected names -- Steve Maruicci, Jon Gruden, Brian Billick, and Charley Casserly.

There's Mariucci, or "Mooch", who learned under Mike Holmgren in Green Bay before helping to turn the late-90's 49ers around and landing head-first in an epic disaster in Detroit. Gruden, the dynamic young coach who gave the Raiders his toughness and installed the West Coast Offense in Tampa Bay. There's Billick, like Gruden, an offensive mastermind who got his ring primarily through a dominant defense. And there's Casserly, Washington's GM from 1989 through 1999, and the first GM in the history of the Houston Texans. He held that position from 2002 through 2006.

All four men will be hosting coverage for the NFL Network this draft weekend, All four participated in media conference calls in the last week, and all four have one thing in common -- they can all testify that when it comes to quarterbacks, the draft process can be a confounding thing.

Follow along live as Cindy Boren Twitters from the NFL Draft.

(Click here to follow us on Twitter)

For most NFL quarterbacks, sixteen starts make up a season. For USC's Mark Sanchez, sixteen starts add up to a lifetime. That's how many times the 6-2, 227-pound resident of Mission Viejo, California took the ball under center as the main man for what has essentially become the NFL's minor-league team. That's not a lot to go on, especially since Sanchez is coming out a year early, foregoing his senior season to see what the NFL has to offer.

There are two sides to the small sample size conundrum -- some believe that Sanchez needs more game film to validate his NFL readiness, while others believe that what he's done in just those 16 starts speak to an upside that is as high as it is for any player in this draft class.

The man in question says that you should look at the quality, not the quantity, of the starts. "More than anything, it's valuable experience playing in a pro-style system," he told me on Monday. "When I go through interviews with teams, and I go on the board and talk about football, they know that my knowledge is way beyond where some guys are coming out of this process. So, I'm well ahead of the learning curve there. Competition-wise, I played against the very best. Not only in games, but in practice, I'd play against Sedrick Ellis, Lawrence Jackson, Brian Cushing, Rey Maualuga, Clay Matthews -- all those guys are first-round guys. I'd do that every day in practice, and if you know how USC practices under Coach (Pete) Carroll, it's ones versus ones all the time.

"The games have been meaningful games against the best competition. Ohio State, Penn State, the Rose Bowl, big-time games in the Coliseum, and a large media market. I feel like it's been great experience, and very meaningful experience. Once NFL teams saw me, and understood how mature I am, and ready for this next jump, they've understood that I'm for real."

Sanchez also has the advantage of his friendships with other former USC quarterbacks; he's talked to Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, and Matt Cassell about their NFL lives and varying degrees of success. "They've been helpful and given me their insight, and it's been great to hear from them. They've told me what to expect in minicamps, how the Combine was going to go, just little things here and there. Don't get caught up in where you get drafted, and don't fall in love with a team, Things like that. They've been very helpful."

After a redshirt freshman year in 2005 and seven pass attempts in 2006, Sanchez got his first three starts in 2007 against Arizona, Notre Dame and Oregon in place of John David Booty. And when the 2008 season began, he was the main man despite suffering a dislocated kneecap in spring practice. What Sanchez did was a revelation -- he led the Pac-10 in just about every meaningful quarterback stat and was among the top performers in the nation in passer rating (164.64) and touchdowns (34). College quarterback stats are difficult to quantify when so many spread-style offenses skew the numbers, but Sanchez's intangibles set him apart in a hurry.

Just as having your ticket stamped by a big school isn't a lead-pipe lock when it comes to NFL success, a small-college designation needn't doom a player to backup or washout status. This is true even when it comes to quarterback -- the most important position in the game. In the last decade, quarterbacks like Delaware's Joe Flacco, Miami of Ohio's Ben Roethlisberger, Marshall's Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich (along with Big Ben, the Holy Trinity of MAC quarterbacks), East Carolina's David Garrard, Alabama State's Tarvaris Jackson, Sam Houston State's Josh McCown, and Eastern Illinois' Tony Romo have all found varying degrees of success in the NFL. In Super Bowl XLIII, Roethlisberger faced off against Kurt Warner, an undrafted one-time NFL flop from Northern Iowa, proving that two small-school quarterbacks can compete at the highest levels, and at a Hall of Fame clip.

One quarterback in the 2009 draft class who is trying to keep his name above the fold, even if his school doesn't ring a bell, is Central Washington's Mike Reilly. The 6-3, 214-pound Reilly started his college career in the Pac-10, but found over time that his ability to shine would have to come in a different arena.

There are players in the game today whose tenacity never quite meets their talent, just as there are many names from the past whose work ethic never quite equaled what they were given. To reach true greatness, desire and ability must find a meeting place.

As much as anyone in the 2009 draft class, Missouri defensive tackle Evander "Ziggy" Hood has created that meeting place. He's a 6-3, 300-pound hulk with 4.8 speed and enough penetrative ability to total 22.5 tackles for loss, 15.5 sacks, eight pass deflections, and a blocked kick in his college career. But it's just as much about the determination that had him appearing in 12 games as a true freshman in 2005, coming back from a fractured foot after only three games missed in 2006, and named a team captain and Consensus All-Big 12 Conference first-team selection in 2008. Though Hood has impressed with his pure talent, he's also got people saying that he's more than the sum of his parts.

At Palo Duro High in Amarillo, Texas, he landed on Missouri's radar by accident. "I wasn't really heavily recruited -- I was recruited by UTEP, Baylor, TCU," Hood said in a recent interview. "But Missouri was looking into a quarterback that year, and a team we were playing against in Lubbock had the quarterback they were recruiting, but I had a standout game that year, and they chose me over him."

The dual nature of life in football -- how one can be catastrophically aggressive on the field and a true gentleman in the "real world" -- was made clear to Florida State defensive end Everette Brown at an early age. Brown's parents were sticklers for decorum and etiquette, and their son had always followed suit, but he discovered that there was "Dad", and there was "Coach".

"[It] was in my sixth-grade year," Brown told the Washington Post in February of the incident that altered his athletic mindset. "We were playing little league football, and my parents had always instilled in me a sense of manners, doing things the right way, and always making the right decision. We were on the field, in the middle of the game, and the running back came to the sideline. I had a great angle on him -- to really take the kid out -- but I pulled up and let him go out of bounds. My dad was the coach at the time, and he took me out of the game. The words he spoke ('If you want to be the best, you have got to lay the pads on him. You've got to put the wood on him,' as dad Odell Brown told the Palm Beach Post in August of 2008) have stayed with me to this day.

Philanthropy can be an indicator of selflessness, but the real measure of that trait can come in less obvious ways. It's in the way a person feels less comfortable talking about themselves than about others, and in the way a person gives to others at times when others are understandably focusing inward.

Case in point: Two days before the 2009 NFL Draft, while most draft-eligible players are preparing for the big event, Connecticut running back Donald Brown will giving back. He'll be holding a seminar at the Downtown Café in Red Bank, New Jersey, speaking to high school players in his home area about being leaders and role models. This is one of the first steps forward in Brown's dream -- the First Annual Donald Brown Player-to-Player Leadership Conference. Those in attendance will have submitted essays on people who have mentored them, and the seminar will facilitate the idea of giving back.

"I want to share that to the best of my ability. Talking to kids in my area and telling them what to expect," Brown said in a recent interview. "When you have the platform that the NFL gives you -- that reach you didn't have before -- you can have a pretty powerful effect on people."

Brown started building that platform in New Jersey, where he starred at Red Bank High. He was named all-division, All-Monmouth County and All-Jersey Shore, ran for over 2,000 yards and scored 27 touchdowns as a senior in 2004, and lettered in track six times. After a redshirt freshman year at UConn, in 2005, Brown didn't waste any time when he got his chance, becoming the first running back in school history to rush for over 100 yards in his first game. He ran for over 100 yards four times in five starts that year. 2007 was supposed to be his big year until he was shut down with an ankle sprain and wound up sharing time with Andre Dixon.

2008 would be the revelation. Brown led the nation in rushing yards with 2,083 yards on 367 carries and added 21 receptions for 125 yards. He rushed for over 100 yards in 11 of 13 games, and exceeded 200 yards against Temple, Virginia, and Buffalo. That last game, the 38-10 International Bowl win over Buffalo, is the game that Brown remembers most fondly. "That was the last game, and going out on top was special," he said.

It was the culmination of a long team-building journey led by head coach Randy Edsall. "Coach has been tremendous. He's been there 10 years, and the program has been to three bowl games, a Big East championship." And though Brown did some of his best work against better NCAA defenses, it took some time before analysts caught up to what he could do. What Brown knew was that after what he accomplished in 2008, he was ready to declare for the NFL Draft.

"It just felt like the right time," he said. "There were many meetings with my parents and coach Edsall, and it just seemed like the right decision. I got a second-round grade from the NFL Advisory Board. That's a pretty good grade, but they take an average of the results."

On the field, Brown most resembles the player he grew up admiring -- Tiki Barber of the New York Giants. He has Barber's smooth running style and pass-catching ability. He also has a smooth bounce outside reminiscent of Shaun Alexander. But his most valuable trait may be his great agility inside -- his quick cuts inside remind some of Terrell Davis.

"I think those are pretty accurate correlations," Brown said, when I told him about my observations. "I would liken myself to Tiki Barber and Terrell Davis because they weren't flashy, but they got the job done. Tiki Barber's ability catch the ball out of the backfield, and Terrell Davis' ability to run the outside zone and cut upfield."

Brown showed those characteristics at the Combine, where he ran a 4.51 40 (fifth among running backs), a 41.5-inch vertical jump (first overall), 10.5-inch broad jump (third), 6.93 seconds in the three-cone drill (top ten), and 4.10 seconds in the 20-yard shuttle (tied for third). "It's been a memorable one," he said in Indianapolis about his Combine experience. "You only get this chance once. It's an opportunity that comes around once in a lifetime, so you have to make the most of it. You take it one day at a time, but it's been exciting. Finally putting some faces to names, and stuff like that. It's been great."

At his Pro Day on March 26, Brown and teammates Darius Butler and William Beatty were seen by more NFL personnel people than any in the school's history. Having never sent a first-day pick to the NFL before, UConn could have three in 2008.

According to NFLDraftScout.com Senior Draft Analyst and PreDraft panelist Rob Rang, Brown's been sneaking up on a lot of people lately. "Last year at this time, much of the pre-draft focus centered on elite athletes like Darren McFadden and Jonathan Stewart. Behind the scenes former Tulane star Matt Forte quietly moved up the charts as scouts became more acquainted with his all-around game and the better-than-expected athleticism he showed in workouts. Brown is similarly versatile and likewise moving up draft boards at precisely the right time. On film, Brown's vision and quick acceleration through gaps in the defense rank among his best attributes. However, he's also shown surprising straight-line speed and explosiveness in drills, as well as naturally soft hands. In direct opposition to some of his peers, by demonstrating better than expected athletic ability in drills, Brown is confounding scouts who had once pigeon-holed him as a back whose eye-popping collegiate success was more due to the talent and scheme in which he played, rather than his own ability."

"The next few weeks are very surreal for me as my childhood dream of playing in the NFL is about to become a reality," Brown said in the recent press release announcing his Leadership Conference. "While I am excited about the opportunities that await me, I am more than appreciative to those who helped me get to this stage in my athletic career. Without the love and support of my family and coaches, Frank Edgerly at Red Bank and Randy Edsall at UConn, I would not be in this position today."

For some, it's just more about others. In Brown's case, he's got a special balance between his deeds on and off the field. Expect that to continue when he reaches the next level.

In the cattle call that is the NFL Scouting Combine, the main event is the 40-yard dash. For all the other testing and poking and prodding that each player has to go through in Indianapolis, the 40-yard dash is the one event that every single athlete knows people will remember. Do you know who had the highest Wonderlic score in Combine history? What about the guy who had the best time in the three-cone drill? If you ask about the 40, though, people will start rolling off names like Darrell Green (reportedly possessor of a 4.09 40-yard dash), Deion Sanders (timed as fast as 4.19), and Bo Jackson (4.23). These are legendary athletes who became mythical figures because of their 40 time.

What hasn't been done before the last couple of years, though, is any analysis of whether the drills at the Combine mean anything. Do players with great broad jumps become excellent NFL receivers? Do quarterbacks need a big Wonderlic score to be smart enough to digest an NFL playbook?

For running backs, the answer is clear. A player's 40-yard dash time does bear a significant relationship with NFL success, measured by yards per carry, yards accrued, or DYAR, a Football Outsiders cumulative metric that adjusts performance for down, distance, situation, and opponent.

In playing around with 40-yard times, though, we noticed something; namely, not all running backs come in the same shape or size. It doesn't make sense to compare the 40-yard dash time of Trung Canidate (4.44) and LaDainian Tomlinson (4.46) and say that Canidate's likely to be a better back; Tomlinson outweighed Canidate by 28 pounds on draft day. His figure was far more impressive than Canidate's was, and it was confirmed by where the two were selected on draft day, as well as their careers thereafter.

Keeping this in mind, we've developed a metric called "Speed Score", which takes into account both a player's time in the 40-yard dash at the Combine as well as his weight. Speed Score bears a significant correlation to NFL carries (a correlation coefficient of .46 and a sign of a player's durability), yards (.46), and DYAR (.37), all at a level superior to that of strictly using the 40-yard dash time alone.

The metric is calculated by multiplying the player's weight by 200, and then dividing that figure by his 40 time, taken to the fourth power. Although it sounds like a bizarre calculation, the whole thing is pretty simple. 40 time is multiplied to the fourth power because of the huge difference there is in hundredths of a second for a player running the 40. The weight is multiplied by 200 to scale the metric so that an average Speed Score is just about 100. The average for first-round picks in the NFL Draft is 112.9.

Note, though, that this is true strictly of running backs and only with 40-yard dash times recorded at the NFL Combine. While other positions likely yield a strong correlation between speed score and NFL success, we're yet to test them and/or find metrics of NFL success that are satisfactory on a large scale. We throw out Pro Day data because of the dramatic differences in context from event-to-event with things like air quality, track quality, and even the type of shoes a player is allowed to wear.

We've calculated Speed Score for running backs going back through the 1999 season. The top ten performances that we've measured are a mix of mid-round steals, first-round picks, and a couple of players who never had careers.

The best Speed Score we've seen comes from Brandon Jacobs, who just beat out the injury-riddled Kevin Jones. Jacobs' rare mix of size and speed is precisely what's reflected in his Speed Score. The result is a player who is quick enough to go by linemen and heavier linebackers, but big enough to go through lighter linebackers and defensive backs.

Speed Score also finds successes in other body types, though. Although Chris Johnson's 197 pounds are below the average of an NFL halfback, the fact that he can run a 4.24 40 allows him to profile as a successful back at the pro level. If his 40 time was 4.38, a figure that would look good on someone like Jones, his figure would be a much less impressive 107.1.

Speed Score also does a good job of identifying players to avoid. Its lowest-scoring first-round picks are William Green (98.7), Canidate (99.3), and Chris Perry (102.7). In the second round, it would have argued against the selection of J.J. Johnson (92.3), Mike Cloud (92.5), and Kevin Faulk (94.0).

Faulk represents one of the flaws with Speed Score and an issue which may come up with one of the more prominent backs in the 2009 class. Faulk's had a successful NFL career for the Patriots as a versatile, change-of-pace back; Speed Score struggles to project those sorts of players as being successful because of their lack of straight-ahead speed. Another player who Speed Score doubted who ended up becoming a successful back was Eagles halfback Brian Westbrook (91.7), who represents the lowest score for any running back who enjoyed success at the NFL level.

Both Faulk and Westbrook are known for their all-around ability, a trait shared by the most prominent back in this year's class, Georgia halfback Knowshon Moreno. Moreno only registered a Speed Score of 96.9 at the Combine, which would give him the lowest Speed Score of any first-round pick in the last ten years were he to be selected among the first 32 picks. Because of his versatility, though, it's likely that Moreno will perform better than this athletic indicator might expect him to on the professional level.

His primary competition in the first round is Ohio State back Beanie Wells. Although Wells ran a 4.59 40 to Moreno's 4.60, the fact that Wells weighs 18 pounds more than Moreno yields a respectable score of 105.9, projecting him as a back likely to experience some success on the NFL level, although one more worthy of a second-round pick; by comparison, of all the backs chosen in the first two rounds of the 2007 NFL Draft, only Felix Jones (103.7) and Ray Rice (99.7) had worse Speed Scores than Wells, a fact which is reflected in scouts' opinions of the two sets of classes.

Looking for a sleeper? Try North Carolina State back Andre Brown. Although Brown was injury-prone in college, he's known as a versatile back who lacks the elite speed that the game's best running backs have. Speed Score might disagree.

From the Rooneys to the Mannings, football has always been about family. The NFL has seen over 150 father-son duos in its long history, and Ohio State wide receiver Brian Robiskie is about to add his name to the list. Brian's dad Terry was a running back with the Raiders and Dolphins for five years, from 1977 through 1981, and since retiring has been a coach with the Raiders, Redskins, Browns, and now the Falcons, where he coaches receivers.

For all the players Terry Robiskie has helped in his long career, his most intriguing student might very well be his son, Brian, who has excelled with the Ohio State Buckeyes since 2006. Robiskie the younger is now known as one of the most intelligent and polished players in the college ranks, and growing up with a father who knows the ins and outs of the pro game hasn't hurt.

"There's no doubt in my mind that having him right there has been an advantage for me," he said recently. "I know that it hasn't always been easy, in that he's going to pick up on more stuff than a lot of dads see watching the football games. He's going to pick up on a lot more watching a son play the position he coaches. He tends to see things that other people probably wouldn't catch. He's always finding little critiques on me, on the field and off the field. It's been just a tremendous blessing just to have him in my life, to have him coach me on the field and coach me off the field. He's played in college, played in the NFL, he's done everything I'm doing right now. He's faced every situation I'm coming to face right now."

And through Robiskie's post-college process, the Senior Bowl, Combine, and Pro Day, he's been helped immeasurably by his dad's knowledge. "I think that I can really see how much he's picked up on these past couple months. Him watching me in college, and him watching me on tape, there's always things he can point out."

"I always remember that time of year [the Senior Bowl]; he was always on the road for that weekend. He would always come back and tell me about the guys, so that it was funny that this would be the week that we'd be there together. Starting from there, having him tell me 'Okay, this is what you do on second day, this is what you do the first couple of days', they're all things I'm going to find out anyway, but to have him tell me that, 'Ok, when you get to the Combine, this is the stuff that you should expect, these are some of the things you should expect,' it makes you feel prepared a bit more."

Robiskie was never specifically coached by his dad on the same team, but "in the background, he was always coaching me."