Rough Draft: Drawing First Blood

In "Rough Draft," lawyer-turned-writer-turned-football-player Clay Travis recounts his experience training for the 2008 NFL draft alongside some future pros. The following is Part 8 of 10 (read chapter 7 here) installments that FanHouse will roll out every weekday leading up to the 2009 NFL Draft on April 25.

It's a little more than two weeks until the NFL Combine and Kurt Hester remains furious with our forty starts.

"Y'all are starting like a bunch of p*****s," he says, "They're f**king horrible."

So horrible, in fact, that for our morning workout Hester has been forced to dig into his massive collection of workout supplies, stored in large plastic blue bins. Desperation has driven Hester to pull out Velcro belts that he can fasten to our waists. In Hester's terminology these are called pop belts.

"They don't even make these anymore," says Hester as he distributes the pop belts to us. "I had to break them out of the bottom of the bins because y'all just weren't listening to me about getting good first steps."

As we strap the pop belts on, Kurt Hester's anger rises to a new level: Purdue wide receiver Dorien Bryant is not at the workout.

"Do any of y'all know where the fuck he is?" Hester asks. None of us do. "This is f**king bulls**t," Hester says, stalking down the field.

When he finally gets over Dorien's absence, Hester vents his anger on the rest of us. "I watched your forty starts on video last night and y'all's starts are all s**t. Every single one of you is raising up just after you start. All of you. That's bulls**t because it's a movement we don't need. Get on the line with the pop belts."

The pop belts work thusly: Kurt Hester has a Velcro grip that he fastens to the back of the belt we all wear. We get down into our stances as if we were running normally and Hester holds on to the grip behind us. Effectively he's holding us up. "Y'all should be so far forward that if I wasn't holding these belts you'd fall over."

When we start Hester yanks the belt back in his direction. The belt pops. The idea behind the training is to get us to exert even more force into our starts. Instead of merely striding forward, we have to leap forward to counteract the exertion coming from behind us.

Our starts seem to improve. At least for the moment. Hester also has us run with heavy hand weights, heavy enough that when we pump our arms they make me feel like my shoulders are going to pop out of socket. Then we fasten weighted belts on and run twenty yard starts on the forty. We alternate the weighted belts with nothing at all. The idea, once more, is that we should move faster without the belts. I have to admit I feel pretty fast once we start moving without the belts and run a couple of hypers.

After an untimed forty, I'm feeling so fluid in my movements that I ask Wil Santi to time me on the second sprint. I put everything I have into the sprint and when I finish I see Santi holing up the stopwatch to Frank Okam and Kurt Hester. Before I can even get to him Santi calls out, "5.59. And I timed you really tough."

My new improvements in the forty are met with studied indifference by Oregon offensive tackle Geoff Schwartz. "Oh, but you were timed after hypers. If I got timed after hypers, I'd run a 5.2." We argue, but about halfway through the argument it occurs to me how much I've become obsessed with the forty. Now I'm arguing particular forty conditions with a future NFL tackle. Eventually Schwartz offers one concession. "You're a lot better now than you were," he says. "The first time I saw you running, I was like, oh my God, who is this kid. He must be a kicker. Especially with the beard."

Craig Stevens chimes in from the other side of the locker room, "Imagine how much faster you'd be without the beard."

Schwartz's dismissal of my improvements, notwithstanding, since Santi first timed me I've shaved .57 seconds off my forty, from a 6.16 to a 5.59. To put that into a yardage context, I've gone from taking .154 seconds to cover every single yard during the forty yard dash to it taking only .139 seconds per yard. This might not sound like much, but it means that if I raced myself at the start of combine training, my current self would win by almost four full yards. In a NFL world where stealing an inch is often the difference between millions of dollars in signing bonuses, four yards is a tremendous amount of difference.

In fact, one of the things I've learned is how different NFL draft picks are treated when it comes to signing bonuses. Each year just 255 players are drafted in the 7 rounds of the NFL Draft. These are the 255 best players on the face of the earth. Yet the wage differential between the top overall pick and the last pick in the draft, number 255, is extraordinary. How extraordinary? The top pick in 2008 will receive in the neighborhood of $30 million in guaranteed money. The last pick? Try $20,000 guaranteed. Yep, in the space of just 255 picks, one drafted player will be guaranteed 1,500 times as much as another drafted player.

And barring a high draft status most guys won't receive enough guaranteed money to live off the interest, even if they never spend a dime. The NFL's minimum salary in 2008 will be $295,000, a decent sum of money, but not when you consider that the average NFL career lasts less than three seasons. Work your entire life, pour your body and soul into football, and if you're lucky the average NFL player might net $500,000 in career earnings. Then he's 26 years old, unemployed, and has to figure out what to do with the rest of his life.

The harsh realities of NFL economic life are beginning to register with the guys just in time for Tennessee's 2008 presidential primary. Even though no other guy training for the NFL Combine is voting in the primary, they're fascinated that I'm voting on Super Tuesday. I inform them that I'm voting for Barack Obama and then lay out my reasons. Caleb Campbell, safety from West Point, thinks about my reasons and then says, "I don't know, Bookman, is America ready for a Muslim president?" Incorrect emails have been circulating at West Point disparaging Barack Obama based on his religious background and Caleb believes them because they came from friends of his.

From discussing the presidential election the conversation spirals into taxes and the financial ramifications of who is elected president. None of the guys I'm working out with have ever made any real money and they're just coming to grips with the fact that the take home pay on their contracts is going to be much lower than what they're actually paid. "Did you know that if you get a million dollars, you only get like $500,000 by the time they take everything out of the check?" asks Craig Stevens.

"Really?" asks Marcus Monk.

Stevens is not referring just to the taxes but also the union dues, the retirement, and sundry other contractual obligations. Kory Lichtensteiger, an avowed conservative who doesn't believe John McCain is a conservative enough Republican nominee, seconds this point. "You liberals take all of our money," he says.

Frank Okam is cranking out bench press reps on around 350 pounds. As he prepares for each set his normally docile face turns angry. By the time he's got himself under the weights he purses his lips and looks like he's about to trash talk the bar. After he racks the weight he sits up and dismissively sneers once more. I mention this to him after one set. "Really?" he asks, face once again turning serene. "That's because it's what I'm doing, trash talking the weight. No one's ever noticed it before."

In between internal trash-talking sets with the weights, Frank Okam discusses his interest in ensuring he makes smart decisions with his money. Frank is very smart (he scored just shy of a 1,300 on his SAT) and, in particular, has a very strong grasp of numbers. He tells me that he's heard of several former players ending up in financial straits because they never had any idea where their money went. Okam fires questions at me about how he should treat whatever infusion of cash he receives from his contract. What are the benefits of buying a home and what sort of tax deductions can he take advantage of? How can he grow his money so that he doesn't even have to live off his actual earnings?

The guys' uncertainty about the ramifications of politics and finances offer further evidence of what a whirlwind introduction to NFL life they face. It's a wonder they can keep track of anything. Most professionals spend their entire working careers advancing to the point where they make six-figure salaries. In mere months these guys, all of whom are currently living on a few hundred dollars a month, suddenly face infusions of cash the likes of which they've never seen.

All of these stresses are combining to take a toll on the group's health. Oregon offensive tackle Geoff Schwartz has a 103 degree fever, and slowly his illness spreads through the close training confines of the locker room. Jason Jones, defensive end from Eastern Michigan, goes down to illness followed by Weston Dacus, linebacker from Arkansas and Firecracker Ryan Karl.

This means our usual Maury Povich television watching group declines in number. Frank Okam, Steve Justice, Craig Stevens, Kory Lichtensteiger and I sprawl out on the couch, and wait to see whether or not a man impregnated his own cousin. We take votes again on whether or not the cousin is the father. Once more the room is evenly split. In fact, the room is so evenly split that the guys aren't willing to leave yet for yoga (even though they're going to be late) and I'm not willing to leave yet to vote in the primary.

"This is a great show," I say.

"You're a pervert," says Justice.

"He's not a pervert. He's normal," says Frank Okam.

"You're just kissing up to him because you want to be in the book." says Justice.

"I know I'm in the book, I'm Frank the Tank," says Okam. Our conversation is broken by the returning verdict. The cousin is not the father. "I told you," says Kory Lichtensteiger, flexing in the locker room. I leave to vote in the primary.

"Go ahead and vote to make the world a worse place," says Kory.

...

Kurt Hester sets up a television hooked up to a video camera in the bleachers off the field. We all walk, barefoot after our Friday workout, to the metal bleachers and sit to watch our forty starts. In case you're wondering, you don't look like what you think you do when you run. I promise you don't. In fact, I'm prepared to say you don't look like what you think you do while you're playing any sport on video. Because we've all been conditioned to watch great athletes on television and that's what we think a sports video should look like. Only you don't look like that. You look much worse. For instance, I look incredibly slow. Depressingly slow, in relation to most of the other guys. All this time I've been thinking I'm moving incredibly fast in my forty, and once I see myself run on video it's like watching paint dry.

Kurt Hester slows down every single player's forty movements and freezes frames so we can see what the correct and incorrect form is supposed to look like. At one point Kurt freezes me in the middle of a forty start. I'm coming out of my start, leaned forward, springing off the line. "Bookman actually has perfect form here," Hester says, tracing his finger along my body alignment. Then, as if the comment shocks him, Hester continues, "Look at this line, perfect." Almost immediately Dorien Bryant turns and says, "Perfect slow form," so that only a few of us can hear.

The guys rain down praise on me. Tennessee tight end Chris Brown turns around and gives me a fist bump. Kurt Hester stands looking at me on the television screen. As the murmur dies down, Hester speaks again, "Y'all Bookman is going to improve his forty time by a second since he's been here. That's freaking amazing."

This is probably an exaggeration since I've only cut .57 seconds off my time so far, but it's still a pretty impressive testament to how much of the forty can be taught. My big number to start also means I have a lot of time to cut. Some of these guys arrived running 4.5's so there was no real chance of their times coming down that much. But if someone running a 4.8 can get down to a 4.5? Well, they've made themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars. Kurt Hester has given us all inches, but he's given me something more, four yards.

"I wanted y'all to see these before the combine simulation night," Kurt Hester says, "so you can see what your starts need to look like." On Monday D1 will hold a combine simulation night in front of a throng of onlookers. The idea is to get the guys used to performing in front of a crowd. "All this time we're working in front of no one, and I don't want the guys to be psyched out when they show up in Indianapolis and all the eyes are on them," Hester explains to me.

As we file away from the video feeds, Arkansas fullback Peyton Hillis remains nervous about his time, "The damn forty," he mumbles to himself.

...

That afternoon Kory Lichtensteiger, Steve Justice, Geoff Schwartz and I play 2-on-2 football. Schwartz joins the game as Kory Lichtensteiger's teammate while Steve Justice has the considerable misfortune of being paired with me. Luckily for me we're playing two-hand touch. Although I do worry a bit about one of the guys getting injured and looking up at lunch to see an ESPN report flick across the screen. "Steve Justice, Mel Kiper's top rated center, broke three toes on his left foot Friday during a game of touch football with CBS Sports columnist Clay Travis. The injury took place when Travis slipped and fell attempting to execute a play-action pass."

On our opening possession, after consultation with my quarterback, Wake Forest center Steve Justice, who draws the pattern on his chest, we design a slant and go. We're both confident that Bowling Green center Kory Lichtensteiger will bite on the slant and attempt to make the interception. "Fat men go for the glory when they get the chance," Justice says.

We're correct. Kory goes for the pick and I cut back outside and beat him deep. Justice launches the pass and it's complete. Touchdown.

Buoyed by our success on the first play, Justice and I design an even more complicated play for our next possession-the double hook and ladder. Justice tosses a short pass to me and I hit him in stride with the lateral. Then I come around the outside, as Schwartz and Kory cut off all of his angles. Bang, I take the lateral and race down the sideline for the score.

Kory and Schwartz take possession of the football and run four consecutive plays with Schwartz at quarterback. We snuff them out on the first three plays. Not trusting my deep speed, Kory launches a long pass on third down that falls incomplete at the far end of the field, the part of the field where a team of overweight, out of shape, and very rich white middle schoolers are practicing. Fourth down has come for Kory and Schwartz. Once more Schwartz challenges me, but I bat down a pass in the end zone.

I wave my finger like Dikembe Mutombo, "I am the end zone," I say.

"That doesn't make any sense," Schwartz says.

Justice and I take over possession with me at quarterback this time. Justice beats Kory on a pump fake from me and then, at the last moment, Schwartz gets a hand up to take down our deep ball. Then, before the trash talk can really get flowing, we get kicked off the football field for a group of five-year olds scheduled to play soccer. Such is life. Even with our abbreviated game Justice is not above trash-talking, "We own you," he says to Kory and Schwartz.

...

The next night, six-hundred people arrive for D1's combine simulation night. The crowd pours onto the sidelines of the field, fills all the seats in the bleachers, an excited clamor of voices carries out over the field where Kurt Hester is putting us through a workout to get loose. The guys, clad in their D1 gear, occasionally pause and look out over the assembled throng.

"There's a lot of damn people here, Bookman," says Tennessee tight end Chris Brown.

He's right, it's an intimidating crowd. Especially when, like me, you've agreed to be the first person to run the forty for the night. Will Bartholomew, owner of the D1 gym, takes a microphone and introduces each of the players. Eventually he introduces me, I walk out and raise my hand, then hustle back to rejoin the anonymity of the group. The guys are trying to psyche me up for my forty, but I can tell they're nervous as well. My time will be broadcast to the crowd, but none of their times will be. The agents want their guys to go through the combine simulation, but they're apprehensive about reports getting out in the event of poor performance.

My palms are sweaty and I start taking deep breaths. This, in a sense, is the ultimate forty test, because it's not private like all the training has been. It's live, in front of a crowd, and while you run there's nobody else moving anywhere. You're the sole focus. In a sport where a single player is rarely the sole focus of any one play, the forty strips away anonymity, brands you with a time, with a football calculus of sorts: You're either fast or slow. You can't hide.

I walk to the line and stretch out a bit. As the final moments tick down, all I'm thinking about is one thing, don't fall. No matter what you do, don't fall.

I crouch down once more on the line. It's just me and the crowd. The guys line up on the field to watch. I can hear them clapping their hands and see them idly stretching as they prepare for their own forty's. That peculiar tension is hanging over all of us, a realization that a difference of .1 seconds can make us feel extreme joy or extreme displeasure; just a small smidge of time, the difference between being extraordinary and having to find another level of work. "We go on you," says Kurt Hester.

I go.

My mind is a blank canvas. At this point, I'm not thinking about all of the infinitesimal details associated with the forty. I don't remember hearing any sound or noticing anyone in the crowd. I just remember running. And in the end, I run my best laser time yet, a 5.68 forty. My time is announced to the crowd and there are a few scattered bits of laughter, a titter of applause, most people don't react at all. Subtracting a conservative .15 from my laser time, I've run a new best time, a 5.53. Almost in the 5.4's.

After my forty, I squat down beside Mark Sutton and record the times of each of the other guys as they run. Sutton and another man are both using stopwatches right at the line, two stopwatch times for added accuracy. As the fastest players dash past the crowd, there's an audible murmur of disbelief at how rapidly the guys are moving. In fact, the speed is literally dangerous. Move rapidly enough and deceleration becomes an issue, something Kurt Hester worries about constantly. "Don't stop all at once, ease your way down," he coaches. Consequently several of the guys have difficulty coming to a stop before reaching the far wall, twenty-five yards distant from the end of the forty. You know you're fast when you have to worry about how you slow down.

Caleb Campbell, just back from Army, runs twice in the low 4.5's. His hamstring is healing and he's happy with those times. "I showed you something there, didn't I Bookman?" he asks. Dorien Bryant, still as mercurial as ever (he'll decline to do a few of the drills at the simulation night) runs two forty's in the high 4.4's, which is not good enough given his height and weight. Despite his collegiate production teams are going to want to see him run in the 4.3's.

Craig Stevens, tight end from Cal, runs his best forty yet, a 4.58. When I tell him, he's happy. Doubly so, actually. Because earlier, at a silent auction to benefit youth football, Stevens bid $300 for a Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora autographed guitar. "At first I bid $250 and then this old lady took the paper back and bid $275 so I went to $300 and kept the paper." Later that night our Aussie trainer, Mark Sutton, approaches him and says, "I'll make you a bet, you have to give me that guitar if you get drafted in the first three rounds." Craig takes it even though he gets nothing in return. "If I go in the first three rounds giving up the guitar will be worth it," he says.

Geoff Schwartz also posts his best time a 5.22. Then he takes the time to talk some trash, "No way you're ever catching me," he says. But all of these times pale in comparison to what Brad Cottam, tight end from Tennessee, does on his first forty. Cottam, a 6'7.5", 270 pound monster of a man, has perfected his start. He explodes off the line and by the time he's at the ten yard mark, I can hear a dull roar growing from the onlookers. Everyone can see that Cottam is moving incredibly fast, as fast as they've ever seen a man of any size move in person. When Cottam passes me I swear I can hear the air zipping around him. For a moment all I can hear is the excited chatter of the crowd. Then Mark Sutton shakes his stopwatch.

"I got him at a 4.41," says Sutton.

"So did I," says the other timer.

Sutton's eyes are huge saucers. I've never seen him this excited. "A f**king 4.41!" he says, again as if even he can't believe it.

As we confirm the times, Cottam walks back in our direction. He's run past so fast that he almost can't stop in advance of the wall behind us.

"What's the time?" Cottam asks.

Mark stands and drapes a hand over his shoulder. "A 4.41," he says.

"No way," says Cottam, a huge grin breaking out across his face.

"You're finished," says Sutton. "Go get ready for the other drills." Brad Cottom, all 6'7.5", 270 pounds of him, has come within three one-hundredths of a second of matching Justin Gatlin's 4.38 start in the 100 meters when he won the gold medal.

But all is not well in the forty universe, Peyton Hills, fullback from Arkansas, runs two high 4.6's. On the first forty, he missteps on his start and careens sideways for two steps. On the second start he eases up before the finish, and waves his hand in my direction. "I don't even want to hear them, Bookman" he says, disgusted. Then, Hillis is so overcome with frustration and anger that he bails on the remainder of the combine simulation. His agent, Jim Denton, drives him back to the apartment. Later Denton tells me, "Peyton's upset about his times. Really upset. He may not come out of his apartment for three days."

The forty is the main attraction, the drill that everyone has come to see. After this spectacular opening, the guys all separate into groups and do the remaining combine drills, some bench press in front of the bleachers while the crowd counts aloud with them while others do the vertical, pro shuttle, broad jump, and three cone drills. But about halfway through the guys start coming up to me and confessing how drained they are. Caleb Campbell says, "Bookman, I left it all on the forty, I've got to pace myself out here."

Kurt Hester is a mad man, seemingly everywhere, cajoling peak performance.

At the end of the combine day, we head to the locker room where chicken is piled high to eat. Everyone is starving and we dig in. Young children are allowed into the locker room for player autographs. One of them, white with brown hair and brown eyes, scrunches up his nose, "It smells like fried chicken in here."

Dorien Bryant's rejoinder is instant: "That's because there's lots of black people in here."

The room erupts in laughter. We're only ten days from the NFL Combine. But for tonight, everyone but Peyton Hills is happy. Even Kurt Hester, "Y'all f**king blew it out tonight," he says. "Awesome!"

...

The next morning Chris Brown, Tennessee tight end, uses one of the large black rollers that we utilize for stretching as a baseball bat. A female D1 employee is throwing him tennis ball pitches and he's lightly knocking them back to her. Just before the workout commences, he decides to swing for the fences.

"I'm gonna hit a home run," he says, "watch this one."

He connects solidly with the ball, and the next thing I know I'm on the ground and my nose is numb.

Yep, the roller comes flying through the air and hits me right in the nose. Me, of all the people it could have hit. As I'm lying on the ground tasting blood, all I can think is that I'm officially Marsha Brady, getting hit by a roller instead of a football.

"You f**king a**hole," I yell from the ground. Brown immediately rushes over and starts patting my shoulder while apologizing, "My bad Bookman, my bad," he says over and over again.

My nose hurts like hell. "You f**king a**hole," I say again as I roll onto my back. For a moment I see actual stars.

Everyone is standing around me now, a whole collection of future NFL stars, doubled over with laughter, because I just got hit in the nose with a stretching roller. By now my nose is bleeding quite a bit, rolling down off my hands and dripping onto the field. We're nine days from the combine and my biggest injury is from a stretching roller.

"Shit, Bookman's bleeding," says Marcus Monk.

"I always did have trouble holding onto the bat," says a pensive Brown.

This is the first real blood to stain the field during combine training. It's only fitting it would be mine. I head to the bathroom and blow my bloody nose out into the white sink. Then I try and use paper towels to stop the bleeding. By the time I'm ready to return to training, we've started warm-ups.

Chris Brown stands beside me as we windmill our arms down the field, "Bookman, let's get inside this circle (the red D1 logo crests the center of the field) and we'll fight it out."

This is a great option to restore my honor. Or a horrible one. I'm going with the latter considering Brown is a 250 pound tight end and I'm a 180 pound writer. He'd destroy me in a wrestling match. "You'll win that one too," I say.

When we head back down the other direction, I keep doing arm windmills instead of the leg lift touches that everyone else is doing. "Bookman's dazed," says Peyton Hillis, who is back training after storming out of the combine last night.

When we finish the warm-ups, we take a break for water. Peyton Hillis pulls me aside and puts his arm on my shoulder, "Man, seeing you get hit like that made my day so much better Bookman," he says. "I was pretty stressed about the forty, until I saw that."

Word of my injury spreads fast. When I head back into the locker room, Geoff Schwartz is waiting for me. "I heard you got wrecked with the stretching roller," Schwartz says, unable to keep a straight face for even a single sentence.

...

We finish off the day's activities by playing two on two football. Steve Justice is on my team again and we're taking on our hated rivals-Geoff Schwartz and Kory Lichtensteiger. Just as we're about to commence, Frank Okam jogs over, "Can I be all-time quarterback?"

We agree to this, meaning Frank Okam becomes the largest all-time quarterback, at 6'5", 340 pounds, in the history of touch football. Let's just say, it's not a good game for me. First I drop a touchdown pass from Okam. It hits me square in the hands on a corner out pattern. There are no excuses. Steve Justice bails me out and catches a pass on the next play so we draw first blood, make that second blood. After three solid defensive plays, Kory Lichtensteiger lights me up on pick play (he and Schwartz cross and Kory decks me in the chest) leaving Schwartz open for a touchdown reception.

On our next series I drop two consecutive passes and we get stopped on fourth down. Then, as a final indignity, Geoff Schwartz, all 6-foot-7, 340 pounds of him, beats me on a straight fly pattern. Yep, he just runs right past me after I bite on a pump fake from Frank Okam. All I can see is Schwartz's back hair as the ball lands over his shoulder. We lose 2-1. It's a crippling defeat. Made all the worse by Schwartz going shirtless. "Hey," he says, "I'm comfortable with my body."

As we walk to the locker room Schwartz and Okam discuss how they conspired to beat me deep. "See," says Schwartz, "we knew you were going to jump the short stuff, so I paused for just a second and Frank pumped it. We knew you'd go for it because it was fourth down and you thought we'd just go for the first down instead of the touchdown."

Okam nods. "We knew you'd go for the pick. Once you did, all I had to do was loft it up there. We gambled that you'd gamble."

I'm crestfallen. NFL linemen can already read me and take advantage of my defensive tendencies. Schwartz is looking at me askance.

"Does your nose still hurt?"

"No," I snap.

"Because either your nose is swollen or you really have a Jewish person's nose."

"I have a Jewish person's nose, a**hole."

Schwartz, the largest Jew on Earth, nods. "I burned you out there Bookman, burned you bad."

...

On the final Friday of NFL Combine training, we focus almost exclusively on our forty starts. We run three sets of starts: with weight belts and then without, with hand weights and without, and then with the pop belts and then without. All Kurt wants to see is our first fifteen yards.

I'm so tired from my lack of sleep, from the training, and from helping my wife take care of Fox that on the final pop belt drill when I spring forward I barely have enough energy left to pull the belt off the Velcro strip. It barely pops and I stumble forward about ten yards before coming to a stop, "Bookman, you look absolutely tired," says Mark Sutton.

It's true, I am tired. My left ankle is killing me, my right hamstring remains really sore. I have no idea what I've done to the left ankle but it hurts on all quick movements. At long last, my body is revolting against my training. Each day for the past several weeks I've woken up and my left ankle has been hurting a bit more. It cracks now whenever I'm walking barefoot in my house. The other night my wife woke up from a nap when I walked into the room and said, "What is all that cracking?"

Despite my personal failings, Kurt is pleased with the efforts. "Y'all are finally starting to listen," he says, which is as close to a group compliment as Hester has come in weeks. "Good thing I kept these f**king pop belts so y'all could get off right."

After our starts, Hester separates the tight ends, fullbacks, wide receivers, and other skill position players from the linemen and defensive players. He has the non-skill position players, including me, line up on different sides of the field every five yards. So the first guy is on the goal line on the right side and the next guy is at the five yard line on the left side of the field. Then the ten yard line on the right side. I'm at the forty on the right side. Hester distributes footballs to all of us. Yep, we've just formed a football gauntlet. For the first time we actually have a drill solely focused on catching a football.

"Make the ball hum," Hester says.

The receivers start with their backs turned to the first passer, spin, catch the ball and then run the length of the field while alternately receiving quick passes from their left and right. Firecracker Karl is particularly brutal with his passes. He's stationed directly before me on the other side of the field and pegs the guys with the football.

Whenever they say anything, he yells, "I promise that's what it's going to be like at the combine."

Which is probably true. At least partly. The goal is to, as Kurt Hester describes it, "catch and shed." In other words you catch the football with your hands and then immediately discard it while turning to get ready for the next pass. Since you're moving at all times, if you don't catch the football cleanly you get hit by the next pass before you have an opportunity to corral the pass.

Craig Stevens, tight end from Cal, tells me after the passing drills that he's glad we had them because he's nervous about how he's going to do catching the football. "We haven't really worked much on our hands and it's been a while since the practices with quarterbacks," he says.

At the end of the drill, after Ryan Karl has thrown the ball so hard at Chris Brown that when it glances off his hands, it spirals into the weight room behind me, there's a sort of dull feeling that we really are close to finishing off our training, that the NFL Combine truly is only a few days away.

Tennessee tight end Chris Brown and Firecracker celebrate the final Friday by arguing, something they do constantly. Brown is on Firecracker for his shoes, for his jacket, for not being a good athlete, not weighing enough, you name it and Brown, his former teammate at Tennessee, is on Firecracker about it. Firecracker will often say, "I know I am not an athlete." Shortly after the pass-catching drill, Brown is on Firecracker for his lack of a vertical. This is their conversation.

"Man, shut up Firecracker, you can't even dunk. Only person who ever came to Tennessee as a safety and couldn't dunk."

Firecracker: "I can dunk."

Brown: "You can't dunk."

"I dunked in the BGA gym (Battle Ground Academy; Firecracker's high school). We can drive there right now and go into the gym and I'll dunk for you."

"Whatever. He's lying Bookman."

Weston Dacus, linebacker from Arkansas, joins the conversation now. "I'll bet you $100 you can't dunk."

Marcus Monk springs into the fray, "$100, there's a goal outside. In the parking lot."

Everyone turns and looks outside the gym at a lonely basketball goal in an empty parking lot. It's one of those basketball goals with a base already attached to it. Firecracker looks at it for a moment and then says, "Okay, let's go."

Marcus Monk grabs a basketball from the gym and everyone heads for the door. Kurt Hester sees a sudden rush towards the door and comes and stands beside me. "One week till the f**king combine and y'all are going to go try and dunk on some shitty goal that might break. Stupid!"

I rush outside, feeling like I'm in elementary school and I don't want to miss a fight. It's freezing outside. Even in the middle of the afternoon. Most of us are in t-shirts and we start to blow on our hands for warmth as we stand around the basketball goal. Marcus Monk takes two dribbles and then runs in from the side and does a double-pump reverse dunk. "I told you I got hops, Bookman. I told you."

After Monk's dunk there is a debate about how tall the rim is, whether it's a regulation height. Monk says he'll test it and clears everyone out. Then he lightly jumps up and hangs from the rim. "This mug's regulation," he says, looking down at us from the rim.

"Man, that's not ten feet," says Chris Brown.

"It's ten feet," says Firecracker, grabbing the basketball and walking underneath the rim. Everyone gathers around, a few catcalls splice through the cool afternoon air. Firecracker has a sort of contemplative look on his face, like he's trying to decide how to solve a quadratic equation without using a pencil. Then he takes a couple of steps back, dribbles the basketball hard with both hands, faces the goal, squares his shoulders, takes two steps and... dunks the basketball with two hands.

Before he's even landed on the ground he's already screaming, "Gimme my money."

Chris Brown's jaw hangs open. Then his face breaks into a large grin. "Firecracker can dunk after all," he says.