NFL players get grilled, why not owners, execs?

Trend of bizarre questions occurs yearly at combine.

You can set your watch by it.

Year after year, soon after the NFL combine finishes, stories come out about the ridiculous question certain NFL teams have asked draft prospects during the interview process in Indianapolis.

And year after year, proponents of the practice try to spin the narrative as a necessary absurdity in order for franchises to understand the psyche of players before they commit millions of dollars to them.

It’s BS.

The interview process is important, sure, but the NFL’s style of “outside the box” questioning would be questionable even if it were administered by trained professionals — and it’s useless in the hands of the dopes who run NFL teams. These guys have enough trouble pulling their challenge flags out of their socks, and we’re supposed to believe they’re adept at making complex psychological evaluations based on their best Howard Stern impression? Please.

This year the victim of this flawed system was former Texas cornerback Kris Boyd, reportedly asked by one team if he had both of his testicles.

As a cornerback, it seems like teams should be more concerned with his coverage skills. Boyd’s situation is just the latest example of this bizarre trend that takes place every year at the combine.

“Do you find your mother attractive?

“When did you lose your virginity?”

“Is your mother a prostitute?”

“Would you use a gun or a knife (to murder someone)?”

“Would you share your internet history with us?” “Boxers or briefs?” Then there’s the story of former New York Giants and current New Orleans Saints cornerback Eli Apple and his interview with the Falcons.

“I’ve been asked a lot of weird questions. I don’t know if I could say on TV,” Apple said on Comcast SportsNet’s “Breakfast On Broad” in 2016.

“The Falcons coach, one of the coaches, was like, ‘So do you like men?’ It was like the first thing he asked me. It was weird. I was just like, ‘No.’ He was like, ‘If you’re going to come to Atlanta, sometimes that’s how it is around here; you’re going to have to get used to it.’ I guess he was joking, but they just ask most of these questions to see how you’re going to react.”

What does Apple’s sexuality have to do with how he plays football?

No matter whom Apple does, or doesn’t, sleep with at night, he was talented enough to be the 10th overall pick of the 2016 NFL draft. After what happened with Michael Sam and conversation about gay athletes in the NFL, and in sports, you would think that a multibillion-dollar franchise like the Falcons would have enough compassion, or good judgment, not to ask questions about that.

It’s not as though questions about a person’s moral and ethical judgment are out of place in an interview. They could help franchises avoid big, embarrassing scandals. But perhaps those questions would be better trained on the people in the owner’s suites than the ones on the field.

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay was suspended in 2014 for six games and had to pay a $500,000 fine after he was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated and for possession of a controlled substance. Irsay had oxycodone and/or hydrocodone in his system when he was pulled over for doing 10 mph in a 35 mph zone.

Before former Houston Texas owner Bob McNair passed away last year, he infamously said, “We can’t have the inmates running the prison,” when the conversation about player protests were at their peak.

During that same time period, it’s also believed that Lions owner Martha Ford tried to pay her players not to kneel.

And then there’s the case of Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who has been charged with two counts of first-degree solicitation due to his alleged visits to a massage parlor in Florida. His charges are part of a prostitution ring involved in human trafficking.

One could argue “Would you share your internet history with us?” would be a more fruitful question posed to ownership.

Every year, young men with hopes and dreams of playing in the NFL are grilled with stupid questions that have little to do with how good a football player and investment they will be a for a franchise, and still less to do with what kind of men they really are. NFL players have made mistakes, embarrassing ones. So have NFL coaches, owners and executives. Only one of those groups is placed under pointed, ridiculous scrutiny for no crime beyond wanting to work for the NFL.

Someone ought to ask the league some tough questions about why that is.

JOE ROBBINS / GETTY IMAGES This year the victim of this flawed NFL combine interview system was former Texas cornerback Kris Boyd, reportedly asked by one team if he had both of his testicles.