The NFL Comes to Tuscaloosa Today For Pro Day

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Today is the day that the NFL scouts descend on Tuscaloosa to check out all the top football players leaving the Crimson Tide this year. With the wealth of talent that Alabama has coming out this year, expect a lot of NFL scouts to be taking plenty of notes.

If you thought that the Indianapolis NFL combine was the only workout that mattered, you would be wrong. In fact, this is very common for the NFL scouts to travel out to campuses for workouts to evaluate players in their own environment. Players love it because they get a second chance to prove themselves on their own turf.

Players will undergo a series of physical tests to determine if they show improvement over the existing workout results from the Indianapolis combine (if they where there). The only outgoing player who will miss Pro Day is star senior cornerback Javier Arenas. Arenas has been troubled by a hamstring injury that he suffered in the Indianapolis workouts. He is scheduled to do a private workout with NFL scouts prior to the draft. McClain decided not to be tested at the first NFL combine. Instead, he opted to be tested at Pro Day because of a reported hamstring that needed to heal.

Many NFL teams are high on the "Man child" McClain, who is huge and fast.  He is expected to have 4.5 speed in the 40 but one coach said it did not matter to him.  The 49ers coach Mike Singletary, who knows a little something about defense as an All-Pro linebacker of the Chicago Bears, says he would be "shocked" if Ro' McClain doen't have a "very good NFL career." 

All American OL MIke Johnson is expected to be a third-round draft and a solid offensive lineman for any team that picks him up.

Junior cornerback, Kareem Jackson, threw his hat into this year's NFL draft and was very impressive in the Indianapolis combine. He is expected to be a second round draft pick, yet may go late 1st round. He ran an impressive 4.48 40 yard dash and the buzz among scouts was that his interviews went very well. David Jeremiah, a former Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns scout said that "Kareem Jackson helped himself immensely," in the Indianapolis scouting combine.

Two players in fact ended up missing the Washington DC check this week because they were training for Pro Day. Those players include Terrence Cody and Rolando McClain.

Terrence Cody's weight will be a "big" thing today as the NFL scouts will see if the big guy was able to work off some of the extra luggage. He came into the Senior bowl game at 370 pounds. It is commonly thought that if Cody can weigh below 350 (and he was already down to 354 at the INdianapolis NFL combine) he could be on track for for the big money with a top 15 draft pick. The teams that will be interested in any are the ones that run the 3-4 formation on defense. Approximately half the NFL temas utilize this scheme.

There some other players that did not get an invite to the Indianapolis combine that will get the opportunity to prove their abilities today at Pro Day in Tuscaloosa. Those players include players like Marquise Johnson, Roy Upchurch, & Eryk Anders.

Most NFL draft experts are considering Rolando McClain the top draft pick from the Alabama team this year. He is projected to be anywhere between the fifth (Chiefs) and the 15th draft pick (Giants).

The NFL draft is set to be on April 22-24.

Here is video from a past Pro Day:


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