NFL DRAFT PREVIEW:
Jitters just beginning
Andrew Luck knows exactly where he’s heading, and so does Robert Griffin III.
For the rest of the college stars preparing for the NFL draft tonight (6 p.m., TSN2, NFL-N), the anxiety is building. Nobody is looking forward to the green room at Radio City Music Hall.
“It kind of made me a little nervous when we were talking to the commissioner and he said, ‘You’ll be back there for an hour and it’ll feel like you’ve been back there for five days,’ ” Southern California tackle Matt Kalil said. “I’ll be sweatin’ up a storm back there, and I want to have my name called and not have to wait too long.”
He shouldn’t have to worry much about that. Most mock drafts project Kalil to go third overall to Minnesota after Luck heads to Indianapolis and Griffin to Washington. But he knows better than to put much stock in the pre-draft chatter. “I stopped paying attention to all of that stuff,” said Kalil, attending an NFL event at a playground in Manhattan. “No one really has a clue. Unless you’re the GM of a team, you don’t really know who a team is going to pick, so you just let it all play out.”
That’s the approach for the nearly two dozen other players who’ll be at Radio City and have no idea when they might walk onto the stage, shake Commissioner Roger Goodell’s hand and hold up the jersey of the team with which they’ll start their professional career.
“For Luck and RGIII, they know what’s going on and they know where they’re going to live and all that kind of stuff,” Alabama safety Mark Barron said. “A lot of us other guys, we’re still wondering where we’re going to be living for the next however many years.”
Griffin, the Heisman Trophy winner from Baylor, is comforted by already knowing he’ll be a member of the Redskins. But he thinks he might actually miss the draft-day jitters. Well, at least a little bit.
“It kind of puts yourself at ease,” he said, “but it does kind of rob you of that natural draftee experience where you don’t know where you’re going and you’re in limbo.”
Added South Carolina defensive end Melvin Ingram: “Yeah, I guess that would be kind of different. You won’t get that adrenalin of, ‘Oh, man. I hope they pick me,’ when you know where you’re going.”
Luck will go No. 1 overall to Indianapolis after a terrific career at Stanford. Like Griffin, he is also expected to step right into a starting job.
“I guess it’s nice, but there’s always competition in football and if I go out there and lay an egg and I’m not the best quarterback out there, I hope they don’t start me,” Luck said.