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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Former NFL executive praises Aaron Kampman





From Mike Garafolo and Lindsay H. Jones's "Manti Te'o among players to be grilled at NFL combine"

Excerpt: Former Green Bay Packers executive Andrew Brandt knew the players had been prepped for the combine interviews for weeks, so he would try throwing them off.

"What do you do when you get up in the morning?" he'd ask.

Brandt would keep drilling the players with those seemingly inane questions until he found out whether the young man in front of him was dedicated and hard-working.

"I was looking for the guys that did a hundred pushups before they brushed their teeth, the guys that woke up early for that last study before class," said Brandt, who cited former Packers all-pro defensive end Aaron Kampman as an example.

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Manti Te'o among players to be grilled at NFL combine

By Mike Garafolo and Lindsay H. Jones, USA TODAY Sports

February 19, 2013

There are few job interviews as intense as NFL scouting combine interviews. Manti Te'o, Tyrann Mathieu and others with red flags are about to learn they're not exactly walking into a corporate board room.

Torrey Smith found that out in Indianapolis two years ago.

"Somebody asked me if they hit me, what would I do?" said the Baltimore Ravens wide receiver, who declined to reveal which team posed the unusual question. "I said, 'No disrespect, but I'll hit you right back.'"

Smith's answer had the questioner and his colleagues laughing. Consider that acing the interview because those 15-minute sessions are quick, fast-paced and ruthless.

Te'o's "catfishing" situation, Mathieu's dismissal from the Louisiana State team because of repeat failed drug tests and Georgia linebacker Alec Ogletree's DUI arrest last week will lead to some interesting sit-downs that can be more like interrogations than interviews.

Teams are permitted to conduct up to 60 of these formal interviews. They last 15 minutes before the players rotate — not enough time to truly get a feel for a player's personality.

The window is also small enough for a player to put on a ruse.

"Maurice Clarett," former Denver Broncos general manager Ted Sundquist said of the team's third-round pick in 2005. "I know he didn't act intelligently (during his brief NFL career), but he's a very intelligent, very engaging guy. When he came to the combine, he was not prepared physically, but he presented himself in a manner that we felt like he was ready (mentally). ... He wasn't ready."

Sundquist recalls a lot of "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" answers that "were very pointed toward him being a competitor." Clarett told the Broncos' staff, "All I want is my opportunity."

The Broncos gave it to him by using a compensatory third-round pick on him. They were confident in their ability to spot talented running backs and believed Clarett was prepared to reinvent his character.

They were wrong. When Clarett showed up to training camp, he was overweight and undermotivated. He was cut by the end of the preseason.

Which is why these sessions can be particularly harsher than most people experience. If there are issues to be uncovered, teams will use interesting techniques to find them.

HEAD GAMES

Former Green Bay Packers executive Andrew Brandt knew the players had been prepped for the combine interviews for weeks, so he would try throwing them off.

"What do you do when you get up in the morning?" he'd ask.

Brandt would keep drilling the players with those seemingly inane questions until he found out whether the young man in front of him was dedicated and hard-working.

"I was looking for the guys that did a hundred pushups before they brushed their teeth, the guys that woke up early for that last study before class," said Brandt, who cited former Packers all-pro defensive end Aaron Kampman as an example.


With a laugh, Brandt added, "At some point the coaches and general manager kicked me out, 'Hey, you're taking too much time with your games you play.'"

There are often quicker, more aggressive "games" played, like the one the Ravens' Smith faced. Brandon Meriweather, a first-round pick of the New England Patriots in 2007, also diffused a similar situation.

Meriweather hadn't even completed the act of sitting down in his chair for a meeting with a team when the University of Miami safety heard the first question about his role in an on-field melee the previous season.

"What the (expletive) were you thinking?"

The technique was designed to see if Meriweather's temper would kick in. It didn't, and Meriweather said the tenor of the rest of the interview was a much more professional one.

Sometimes, the intimidation factor comes in the form of a large interview panel, which can often include a team psychologist.

"I wondered, what can this doctor tell you about an NFL player?" said Ricky Jean Francois, the San Francisco defensive tackle drafted in the seventh round in 2009.
Francois recalled a particularly intense 15-minute session with the Cleveland Browns, who had his Louisiana State game film cued up on a television when he entered the room.

"He was just showing different clips, different plays, asking me what the formation was. I had never seen some of it," Francois said. "If your mouth stopped, something was coming off his tongue right quick."

Teams don't want to hear rehearsed answers. And if they do get one, the player should expect a follow up asking for the real story and the real answer.

"It's personal questions. Your family, how you were raised, how well you did in school, if you had any failed drug tests, run-ins with the law," said Ravens defensive end Pernell McPhee, a fifth-round pick in 2011 who was stunned to hear such questions. "They ask you every question possible, and they already know the answer. They just want to see if you're going to tell the truth."

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