Senior Bowl: Here’s what a scout grilling a prospect sounds like
MOBILE, Ala. — This is the epicenter of the NFL for a few days, and the Renaissance Riverview Plaza Hotel is ground zero for scouts to do much of their work.
Oh yes, the practice fields are important. But the interviews, which will go on before and after the daily practice sessions, are equally as huge. Scouts pull players into corners, down hallways and behind doors to steal a few minutes of fact time. It’s where many of the teams stay, it’s where all of the players are staying, so much of the action not on the field happens here.
Scouts have questions. They hope the players have answers. The right answers, that is.
In one corner of the hotel, a San Diego Chargers scout is grilling Maryland DT Quinton Jefferson about anything and everything. Firing off questions like a veteran courtroom prosecutor.
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“What do you eat for breakfast?”
“And what happened with that little fight you had?”
They’re essentially private investigators, these scouts, spending hundreds of days on the road each year with their ears firmly planted on the ground. They know all.
Jefferson was caught off guard by the fight question, which he shouldn’t have been. He suffered a broken jaw prior to his senior season after getting into a scrap back home, and the scout wanted to know what the story was.
“Just a scrap? Just boys being boys? What happened?”
Jefferson explained in a low voice, too low to hear, head hung down but not appearing to be ashamed. At one point, he smiled and so did the scout.
“So just a little scrap, eh? OK, OK … it happens. You OK now?”
Then the scout doubled down and asked Jefferson about his torn ACL.
“That happened against West Virginia, right?”
Of course it did. Jefferson explains that he’s on track and feeling good. Of course he does.
This is the scout’s role: Look beyond the answer and become human polygraph machines. They want to look into the players’ eyes and get the real story.
It goes on like this for five or six intense minutes, one question after another, maybe 20 or 25 questions all told. The scouts have limited time this week, and so do the players. They’re being shuttled from the weigh-in on Tuesday morning to team meetings to this afternoon’s practice. Then more team meetings and chats with scouts. This will go on all day for three days straight. It’s a mental and physical gantlet. That’s how the NFL wants it.
Scouts aren’t here to make friends with the players; they want answers, and if they don’t like the players’ responses they’ll rephrase and ask a different way. But the goal is the same: to gather as much information — on injuries, fights, schemes, dreams, desires, workout goals — as they can in as short a timetable as possible.
“You smoke?”
“You drink?”
“Nothing?”
“You’re married, right? And three kids, is that right?”
Jefferson is a fourth-year junior, able to play at the Senior Bowl because of new rules allowing those players who are on pace to graduate this spring to attend. It can help them immensely, playing well and interviewing well. It also can go the other way.
Senior Bowl is an intense week. There’s little down time for the players with their NFL futures hanging in the balance.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm
