So much happened during the spin cycle from January to April, yet none of it seemed to matter for quarterback Vince Young.
At the beginning, Young's performance for Texas in the Rose Bowl caused talent scouts to place him immediately at the head of the NFL's draft class, next to Southern California running back Reggie Bush, though neither had announced plans to leave college after their junior seasons.
On April 7, Young was paraded around the Texans' gleaming facility in Houston, feted with a news conference and handed fistfuls of team gear as he left.
But in the days between, his reputation repeatedly dipped and arced: rocked by sudden doubts about everything from his arm motion to his intelligence, then rejuvenated by an impressive throwing exhibition in front of an estimated 130 NFL team officials at the University of Texas.
Young's turbulent venture is typical of the process for many potential draft picks. The months between the last college football game and the first pick of the draft -- April 29 this year -- are flooded with the murky waters of hype and spin, which sometimes threaten to drown out talent and ability.
All it takes to change the perception of a player is a good time in the 40-yard dash or a bad score on an aptitude exam, whispers of a dazzling workout in front of scouts or damaging gossip floated by someone with an agenda. At stake are millions of dollars in contracts and, possibly, the long-range championship aspirations of franchises.
In the end, the biggest draft question is not just who will be chosen by whom. It is also whether the preceding buzz really matters, or whether the past few months have been little more than an alluring sideshow for the news media and fans.
"You focus nothing on the media coverage of the ups and downs," Charley Casserly, the Texans' general manager, said in a telephone interview. "You make your own evaluation. It's totally ignored."
Others are less dismissive. To them, the swings of speculation are something to watch, if not follow.
"In a perfect world, we would be more even-keeled," Green Bay general manager Ted Thompson said. "But I will say that we all get carried away with the numbers sometimes and chase the ghosts."
Teams, of course, direct the draft hype, too. The day before Young visited the Texans, Bush was their guest. Each was marched through the headquarters and trotted before cameras and reporters. The Texans will select only one of them -- or, perhaps, neither.
Asked if teams, in general, use smokescreens to hide their intentions, Casserly said: "There is an element of that in this, no question. There always has been."
Predicting the draft is a foggy endeavor. It entails trying to assess the strengths and weaknesses of hundreds of college football players, and matching them with the mostly private thoughts and perceived needs of 32 NFL teams in a preordained draft order.
This exercise befuddles even those paid as draft analysts. Three weeks before last year's draft, Mel Kiper Jr. of ESPN, the most famous of the lot, predicted correctly two of the first 21 actual selections. The player many thought would be chosen first, California quarterback Aaron Rodgers, was selected 24th -- and received a contract with a reported US$18.6 million less in guaranteed money than that of the top pick.
But an inability to solve the draft puzzle does not slow -- and may inspire -- the fascination that manifests itself in everything from talk-radio rants and numbing blogger analysis to draft-specific magazines and hours of scuttlebutt on "SportsCenter."
Helping whet the appetite for draft news is a cast of agents, general managers and scouts, each with a motive to draw or to deflect attention, to inform or to confuse. "This is the `World Series of Poker' meets sports," the agent Don Yee said. "It is reality TV at its finest."
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