The ‘most interesting man in the draft’ … He’s not even a consensus first-round prospect for the upcoming draft, but Texas Tech QB Patrick Mahomes may be the most popular guy in the class. Mahomes had what is being described as a very impressive pro day today in Lubbock where he showed what is considered to be the strongest arm in this year’s draft. However, what makes Mahomes such a popular guy is the number of team’s that want him to either work out privately or visit. Mahomes has already reportedly worked out with as many as a half dozen teams, including Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati, Arizona, New Orleans and San Diego, while he reportedly has workouts or visits planned with as many as a dozen more. One other team that appears to be very interested in Mahomes are the Giants. How interested? Giants’ head coach Ben McAdoo, who has never attended a pro day in the three-year tenure with the team, but took the time to travel half way across the country to check out Mahomes as a potential successor to Eli Manning. Only problem for the Giants is that it is starting to look like Mahomes may off the board long before they get on the clock with the 23rd pick. One other note on interest from today’s pro day activity: Tennessee DE Derek Barnett ran the 40 at the Vols’ pro day but his time didn’t appear to be much of an improvement at all from his relatively slow 4.88 clocking at the combine. Barnett did have an excuse in Indianapolis as he was sick the day before the on-field workout for defensive linemen and actually wasn’t expected to participate at all in the combine drills, while he reportedly has been dealing with a strained hamstring in recent weeks which likely impacted his pro day run. We probably won’t know until the actual draft what NFL teams think of Barnett’s speed, or lack thereof. Indeed, nobody in the NFL expected Barnett to clock a track star time as he wins with quickness, technique and intensity, but one would really like a sub-260-pound edge rusher with top 10-15 aspirations to run somewhere close to 4.6 and certainly under 4.7. Stay tuned.
