Thanks to ESPN’s constant, almost suffocating coverage, this seems more like a question that’s already been answered. Kid declares for the Draft, hires an agent, performs at his school’s Pro Day and, maybe, the NFL Combine, and then spends the rest of the time leading up to the Draft talking to teams. On one of the Draft nights, he gets a nice phone call from a team, and all is well.
The thing is, though, that this only applies to early-round picks. Hundreds of others with slimmer chances hope to be picked up in the later rounds — if at all — and it’s much harder to gain exposure.
I was curious to see how different things were for those less-heralded, so I got in touch with a Draft hopeful with local ties: Michigan State defensive end Denzel Drone, a former Plant City Raider.
Drone got to see both sides of the Draft process. Teammate Darqueze Dennard, regarded as one of the top cornerbacks of the 2014 Draft class, was a first-round pick of the Cincinnati Bengals and was treated as such by the media. On the other hand, Dennard was the only Spartan selected in the Draft — which means that Drone and the rest of his teammates will have to find another way into the league.
And, even though they weren’t selected, it wasn’t for lack of effort.
The NFL Scouting Combine is in February, but there’s a catch: Not everybody is able to participate in it. That normally includes later-round hopefuls, such as Drone. For these guys, the first big test in the spotlight is their school’s Pro Day — basically, everything the Combine has to offer but with a home-field advantage. Schools normally hold their Pro Days in March, about a month after the NFL Combine.
The weight room is where all of the athletes are on equal ground. There isn’t any of the outside pressure from the media weighing heavier on a Dennard than a Drone. All that the players have to do is work and prepare themselves for anything that NFL scouts and coaches will ask of them. This starts with the school’s strength and conditioning coaches.
“We got into a weekly routine,” Drone says. “On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we lifted. Monday was upper-body day, Wednesday was lower-body day, Friday was a total-body workout. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we did Combine drills.”
Although the 40-yard dash gets the most publicity, there are five others prospects need to be able to complete: the bench press (as many reps of 225 pounds as possible), the vertical jump, the broad jump, the three-cone drill (weaving between cones in an L shape) and the shuttle run. Although there’s no official power ranking for the drills, that’s basically the order of importance in the public eye.
After Pro Day, everything is left largely up to the athletes themselves.
“I was eating healthy, working out three to four times a week,” Drone says. “I was really running more than I was working out — I wanted my cardio to be ready, if I got picked up by a team.”
Because there are no other highly publicized workouts left before the Draft, this is where the agents come into play: keeping teams interested in their guys. But, for players such as Drone, hiring an agent isn’t always a viable option. The later-round guys know there’s a chance they won’t get selected at all, so they start considering other options.
“I actually did not hire an agent, because I felt there was no point of wasting money,” Drone says. “I was looking more forward to free agency. I used my own knowledge (to work with teams), and my friends in the NFL helped me.”
Unlike Johnny Manziel, guys such as Drone don’t get easy access to the spotlight for self-promotion. For them, everything after the Pro Day really takes on a “who-you-know” approach. His friends, mentors and coaches all worked their NFL contacts to keep Drone on the radar, but whether that worked has yet to be seen.
Although he’s still committed to joining the NFL and continues to prepare for it, Drone also has played it smart by creating a backup plan for himself.
“I’m just waiting if I hear something,” he says. “Right now, I’m working on getting back in school and trying to get my master’s (degree), in case nobody picks me up. I’m trying to get education degree, so I can get into teaching and become a high school coach one day.”
If Drone does make it onto an NFL roster and sees playing time, he’ll be the first Plant City native in 21 years to do so.
