The Combine: Day -1

Going into this thing—like the bridge keeper from Monty Python and The Holy Grail—I want to know three things: who will the Bengals draft and why? will the labor uncertainty and a lack of a salary cap this off-season change the draft process? and what in the hell is the Combine like anyway?

I've been to a dog show before, but this is the Westminster. They check the teeth and ears, and make the dogs run and jump, just like they did at UC a year ago. Only this time, they run intelligence tests on the dogs and even make them speak.

Yes sir, it's a granddaddy alright, complete with slick agents, shrewd experts, hordes of media, the dogs of course, and somehow—me. Soon I will be engulfed by an elite social strata of which I have never known. Literally millionaires, or in some cases, soon-to-be millionaires, will commiserate within mere feet of where I will stand. And then, as they've seen enough dogs for the day, or maybe just going to take a leak, they will drift past where I am and it is my job to stop and ask them their opinions of the dogs.

“Which kinda dog you into?” I'll ask Bill Parcells as he purchases a bag of peanut M&M's from the vending machine that hums all day in the room where I and the other underprivileged press are confined to.

“How the hell do I know? Who the hell are you? Why are you talking to me?” The Tuna will retort.

Hopefully it goes better than that.

Yet, who knows? Not the men who procured my press pass, that's for sure. When I asked if we would have access to the actual workouts, they answered very slowly, “probably not”. When I asked if interviews would be a free-for-all with reporters mobbing figures of greater fame as they tried to leave the building, they just couldn't say.

What they did manage to tell me was of their background and of how their blog was started. They also managed to spend a lot of time on this conference call telling all the guys picked to do this thing how to dress. The General of the operation, the company's 'man on the ground', was adamant about getting everyone together for dinner and drinks. Essentially, nothing was discussed that gave details of any kind of a working environment we could expect.

So I'm doing this thing my way and that is: one part improvisation, two parts curiosity, a heaping spoonful of nerves, and just a twist of comedic internal dialogue to keep me loose. The end product will be three answers to satisfy us all.

Mojokong—“blessed are the cracked for they let in the light”--Monsieur Jot