IT'S FEB. 17, and, like at the start of every other NFL scouting combine, each team has set up a booth inside a cavernous lounge in Lucas Oil Stadium. The effect is a gantlet drill of executives, coaches, and scouts every bit as daunting as the on-field workouts or the Wonderlic tests that await the latest class of draft prospects.
Entering this fray on a chilly Indianapolis morning is Dorial Green-Beckham, a 22-year-old conundrum of talent and troubles. Each team gets 15 minutes with him -- or more like 13 minutes after pleasantries and small talk. Got to get down to business.
All Green-Beckham has to do is tell the truth. He has no choice. As he moves from booth to booth, shaking hands, grasping at names, he knows his 87 receptions and 17 TDs over two years at Missouri have been offset by two marijuana-related arrests and an investigation into a possible domestic disturbance that led to his dismissal from the team.
"I had to repeat that story every single time," Dorial says weeks later, sounding a bit weary still even now. "It was all about finding out what happened at the University of Missouri."
And yet -- as Green-Beckham shuttles from table to table -- it isn't. The people asking him the questions already have most of the answers. This is an exercise in performing under pressure, one long off-field drill to measure his character.
"Can we trust you?"
Green-Beckham is asked that question more than 20 times. The only possible answer is yes, of course. Who would say no? The teams know it's a stock response, a part of the process that cannot promise any real guarantees. "They wanted to know what I learned from that, and if they give me all of this money, am I prepared for it? But I knew that's what they were going to do. I went in there, and I was ready for whatever." He had to be. If NFL teams decide they cannot trust him, Green-Beckham could drop from a prospective first-round draft pick to a third-rounder.
The final interview ends at 11:30 p.m., just 5½ hours before his wake-up call. He jogs over to his hotel to stretch and do a few exercises to loosen his hamstrings, which are stiff from sitting all day. Lights out at 12:30 a.m.
That next morning should begin the most nerve-wracking part of the experience: the combine's on-field workout, a grueling series of drills and tests meant to identify the best of the 300 prospects invited to Indianapolis. But few of those watching this now made-for-TV spectacle from the comfort of their homes would ever suspect that these finely tuned, media-trained college football stars are drained before they even slip on their spandex. "You're mentally exhausted," Green-Beckham says later. "Some guys are so beat-up from the interviews, they don't even go out there and test good."
For him, though, the only questions left to answer are on the field. It feels like old times. It feels like freedom. It feels like football. Over the next couple of hours on the Lucas Oil turf, he goes out and confirms what everyone with decent vision or YouTube has known about him since he was a preteen basketball prodigy in southeastern Missouri: Dorial Green-Beckham is one heck of an athlete.
"It was comfortable," he will say, smiling broadly. "Some guys freeze up because we're in the lights and guys are watching. But I just went out there and had fun. I was just being me."
NFL executives are dedicating their considerable resources to figure out exactly who that is.
IN ANY OTHER YEAR, Green-Beckham might have been able to slip into the NFL without all that focus on his character. But pro football has changed forever. Coming off a year of unprecedented public scrutiny after the league's handling (many might say mishandling) of domestic abuse cases involving stars Ray Rice, Greg Hardy and Adrian Peterson, the NFL is under significant public pressure to clean its house; and do so in a time when fans know as much about the off-the-field exploits of their sports stars as they do their measurables. Indeed, some behavior now raises as many red flags as a torn ACL -- if not more.
"When something bad happens with a player and it all goes wrong," says former Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager Mark Dominik, "you're the ones getting embarrassed."
That could be bad news for Green-Beckham. Because of his off-field missteps, he hasn't caught a touchdown pass in more than 15 months, when he caught two against Auburn in a breakout performance in the SEC championship game.
Perhaps the best comparison for Green-Beckham is...
