Seth Wickersham ESPN The Magazine Apr 13, 2009

What's All the Fuss About?

Just six weeks before the NFL draft, wideout prospect Michael Crabtree is preparing for the occasion by sittin' on 22s. Literally. He's got a wheelchair-a gift from his dad-that's been tricked out with red rims. He zips around his North Dallas apartment pretty well for someone who's just had surgery to repair a stress fracture near his left pinkie toe. And his training doesn't end in his chair. Each morning, Crabtree wakes up at 11:30, then sits in bed, simultaneously watching movies on his flat-screen and Young Jeezy videos on his laptop. At around 2 p.m. he makes a move, but he can't shower, not with his foot in a cast. So the 6'1", 215-pound former Texas Tech receiver climbs into the tub-his first baths since grade school-bum foot hanging over the edge. At 3 he leaves his place for the first time, impressively fleet on a set of crutches, for lunch at Pappadeaux. The menu: fried shrimp and mashed potatoes, with two lemonades-one with freshly squeezed straw-berries, the other with uncut berries floating in the drink like ice. Then it's back home for more movies and videos. At 10 Crabtree orders a pepperoni thick-crust from Pizza Hut, the empty box joining nine others stacked like a Jenga game on his kitchen counter. "That's my regimen," he says.That's right. No sprinting 40s, no lifting 225 pounds, no slaloming around cones. None of the jumping through hoops that passes for talent evaluation during draft workouts.

GMs have only two ways to size up Crabtree-talking to him and watching his film. And they've concluded that he's a top-10 pick, broken foot and all.Imagine that. A good football player in November is still considered a good football player in April.Such logic is strangely scarce during this silly season, when a college star's NFL potential is sometimes based on anything but his ability to play the game. A running back who spent four years street-cleaning linebackers is a little slow running around cones, and suddenly he lacks explosion. A major conference receiver who turned double-teams into rumors each autumn runs a 4.58 40, and his speed is red-flagged. For years we've been told by experts that these tests accurately predict NFL success. They don't, of course, at least not in any practical way. Remember Mike Mamula? "What's it really matter if a player runs a fast 40 or not?" asks one NFC GM. "Not much."Here's the draft bubble's dirty little secret: The buzz generated from these drills and how it affects a player's status is actually based on ego-usually a coach's-not results.

The combine is typically the first time coaches see prospects, on film or otherwise. Until then, they've only glanced at their team's draft boards, which are compiled by scouts. But many coaches secretly believe that scouts don't know how to find the right players for their system, while scouts think coaches can't evaluate talent. That friction, especially on teams that routinely change staffs and schemes, can cause a coach who's just witnessed a combine or pro day workout to declare that Player X is ranked too low or too high, just to prove a point. Says one AFC personnel boss: "It can ruin a draft."In fact, most GMs will tell you they care more about the effort a player puts into these arbitrary drills than the scores. They rarely even record a player's results. Instead, they observe how a potential draftee interacts with his teammates, whether he's first in line for drills and how he reacts to pro coaching. In the end, a pro day is a forum for judging character disguised as a test of athleticism. "When we really want to know what kind of football player someone is," says Packers GM Ted Thompson, "we go back to the tape." That's why-crazy as it sounds-it doesn't matter that the 2009 draft's top-rated receiver is wearing a cast. Not that Crabtree enjoys being laid up. He'd rather run. He even does crunches and push-ups during commercial breaks while watching TV. But his tests weren't going to improve his stock. The two-time Biletnikoff winner scored 41 touchdowns in 26 career games, and runs, at best, a 4.50 40-slower than the draft's other top wideouts, Missouri's Jeremy Maclin (4.45) and Florida's Percy Harvin (4.39). Hoping to notch a 4.4, Crabtree trained in February at a speed center-the football equivalent of an SAT prep course-operated by former Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson. He'd become obsessed with running faster, even though he knew better. "A 40 doesn't show much, except maybe that you can get off the line fast," Crabtree says. "But people said I was slow, so I was eager to prove I wasn't."