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Patrick Willis (with ball) has elevated himself to the top of the list of linebacker prospects for the NFL draft with some recent eye-popping workouts.
By Scott Cacciola
April 16, 2007
Patrick Willis discovered the dangers of his growing celebrity when he arrived in Dallas last month to take part in his first commercial shoot. The director of the spot for Under Armour, an athletic apparel company, decided to have Willis work with a punching bag outside in the rain. Willis slipped. The bag rebounded against him. He fell to the ground.
If there were a few anxious moments shared by Willis' handlers -- namely, his agents, who remain highly aware that their prized client is less than two weeks from becoming a multi-millionaire, barring some sort of disaster akin to a freak punching-bag mishap -- they evaporated once Willis started to laugh as he returned to his feet.
Willis, a linebacker who wrapped up an all-American career at Ole Miss last fall, appears a lock to be a top-20 selection in the NFL Draft on April 28, and he solidified his status as one of the country's top prospects with a Pro Day effort last month that Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron described as "phenomenal."
"I like to make coaches ooh and aah when I'm performing," Willis said.
Draft preparation is a numbers game, and Willis posted some solid ones at the NFL Combine in late February. At 6-1 and 242 pounds, he bench-pressed 225 pounds 22 times. He recorded a 39-inch vertical leap. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.51 seconds. But that last number irritated Willis. He said he knew he could have done better.
So he returned to the Athletes' Performance Institute in Tempe, Ariz., where he had spent much of the winter, and continued to train. Then he appeared at Ole Miss' Indoor Practice Facility on March 20 to toe the line before a cluster of scouts on Pro Day. He blistered the 40-yard dash in 4.37 seconds.
"Staggering," said Rob Rang, senior analyst for NFLDraftScout.com. "It's unheard of for a player that size, for a player at that position."
Willis easily could have stopped the workout right then, and everyone would have gone home impressed. Instead, he decided run the dash once more, as if to prove his first time was no fluke.
"Everybody's sitting there saying, 'There's no way he's going to run it again, he's just going to pack his bags up,'" Orgeron recalled. "And he ran it again."
Willis nearly replicated his first effort, finishing in 4.38 seconds. (By comparison, Southern California wide receiver Dwayne Jarrett ran his 40-yard dash in 4.62 seconds at the NFL Combine.) Willis was asked last week why he risked it.
"Because I like to compete," Willis said in a telephone interview. "I'm never satisfied with my performance."
Without question, Rang said, Willis' Pro Day guaranteed his standing as the top linebacker in the draft. Linebackers historically have had a hard time breaking into the top 10 because there tends to be a lot of depth at the position and teams know solid players will be available in later rounds. But many draft gurus, including Rang, predict that the Buffalo Bills, in dire need of a middle linebacker, will select him at No. 12.
"He's a star," Rang said. "The more you get into his personal life, the way he's played the injuries, the more of a sure thing you know this guy is going to be. Even though he probably won't go in the top 10, there are only three or four guys along with Patrick Willis who are sure things in this draft."
He played most of the 2005 season with a broken right hand, which was protected by a cast the size of a giant ham. That image of Willis -- rushing menacingly toward the line of scrimmage, wielding his cast like some sort of medieval club -- was featured on the pages of countless Ole Miss football materials last fall, and for good reason. The photo seemed to represent Willis at his best: playing through pain and dealing with adversity to help his team.
Growing up in Bruceton, Tenn., Willis endured a Dickensian childhood. His mother was absent. His father was unreliable. At age 6, Willis was cooking meals for his younger siblings. By the time he was 10, he was picking cotton for long hours under a brutal summer sun. And even after he emerged as a star at Bruceton Central High and later at Ole Miss, he dealt with tragedy. Last summer, his 17-year-old brother Detris drowned while swimming with friends in the gravel pits outside Bruceton.
In other words, Willis possesses a backstory that could have broken him long ago. Instead, facing long odds, he has persevered. At Ole Miss, he was active in the community and beloved by fans. NFL personnel describe him as "high character," two of the most valuable words when it comes to the draft.
"Everyone kind of knows his background, his situation," said Mark Heligman, Willis' marketing agent with SFX Sports Group. "He's just a really good person, a good quality guy. And it's been a joy for us to work with him."
Willis said he has traveled to meet with coaches and front-office executives from the Dallas Cowboys, who have the No. 22 pick in the first round, the Philadelphia Eagles (No. 26), the New England Patriots (No. 24), the Cincinnati Bengals (No. 18), and the Bills. He said he plans to visit at least three more teams this week.
Most of those teams have provided Willis with private jets for his cross-country jaunts, a perk of his newfound status. But if he had his choice, he said, he would avoid those small planes altogether. They make him nervous. Last week, he flew aboard a large Continental airliner from Cincinnati and Buffalo. That, he said, was more his style.
"It's a lot of fun," he said. "I didn't get a chance to travel growing up. Coming from a small town, then going to Ole Miss, we got to play other teams and go to some different places. But it's nothing like the opportunities I have now, to get to see different cities and meet new people. It's just a lot of fun."
Willis, the SEC's defensive player of the year last fall, has somehow managed to retain an endearing innocence about him, and in many ways, Heligman said, Willis is naive to the ways of the world. Heligman said his responsibilities, at this early stage, include educating Willis about the challenges that can arise during the swift transition from poor college student one day to professional millionaire the next.
When a call to Willis' cell phone this week went unanswered, he promptly replied with a text message: "I'm in a meeting."
"There are so many people trying to get to him, whether it's the media, the fans, the unsavory business people out there are who trying to take advantage of these athletes," Heligman said. "And I think financially, they have to get accustomed to having money for the first time in their lives. We've done a lot of deals for Patrick, and those checks are starting to come in. So that's an adjustment he has to make, just learning how to deal with budgeting."
Ole Miss, meantime, got a taste of Willis-free living this spring, and the experiment was predictable. He will be tough, probably impossible, to replace. The Rebels were 4-8 with him last fall, and they would have been far worse without him. That much was apparent during the team's annual intrasquad Grove Bowl earlier this month, after which Orgeron emphasized that his defense up the middle "was not very physical."
So as the Rebels seek to fill the hole left by Willis, they will keep a close eye on his future. Orgeron said he expects Willis to be the highest draft choice in the history of Ole Miss' defense. Freddie Joe Nunn (1985) and Tony Bennett (1990), both linebackers, were selected with the 18th picks in their respective drafts.
"That's a big deal for us," Orgeron said. "Patrick put us on the national map."
Willis said he will be home in Bruceton on draft day, when his Under Armour commercial will debut on ESPN.
Until then, he plans to stay out of the rain. The clouds have cleared for Willis, who is enjoying nothing but sunshine.
-- Scott Cacciola: 529-2773
By Scott Cacciola
April 16, 2007
Patrick Willis discovered the dangers of his growing celebrity when he arrived in Dallas last month to take part in his first commercial shoot. The director of the spot for Under Armour, an athletic apparel company, decided to have Willis work with a punching bag outside in the rain. Willis slipped. The bag rebounded against him. He fell to the ground.
If there were a few anxious moments shared by Willis' handlers -- namely, his agents, who remain highly aware that their prized client is less than two weeks from becoming a multi-millionaire, barring some sort of disaster akin to a freak punching-bag mishap -- they evaporated once Willis started to laugh as he returned to his feet.
Willis, a linebacker who wrapped up an all-American career at Ole Miss last fall, appears a lock to be a top-20 selection in the NFL Draft on April 28, and he solidified his status as one of the country's top prospects with a Pro Day effort last month that Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron described as "phenomenal."
"I like to make coaches ooh and aah when I'm performing," Willis said.
Draft preparation is a numbers game, and Willis posted some solid ones at the NFL Combine in late February. At 6-1 and 242 pounds, he bench-pressed 225 pounds 22 times. He recorded a 39-inch vertical leap. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.51 seconds. But that last number irritated Willis. He said he knew he could have done better.
So he returned to the Athletes' Performance Institute in Tempe, Ariz., where he had spent much of the winter, and continued to train. Then he appeared at Ole Miss' Indoor Practice Facility on March 20 to toe the line before a cluster of scouts on Pro Day. He blistered the 40-yard dash in 4.37 seconds.
"Staggering," said Rob Rang, senior analyst for NFLDraftScout.com. "It's unheard of for a player that size, for a player at that position."
Willis easily could have stopped the workout right then, and everyone would have gone home impressed. Instead, he decided run the dash once more, as if to prove his first time was no fluke.
"Everybody's sitting there saying, 'There's no way he's going to run it again, he's just going to pack his bags up,'" Orgeron recalled. "And he ran it again."
Willis nearly replicated his first effort, finishing in 4.38 seconds. (By comparison, Southern California wide receiver Dwayne Jarrett ran his 40-yard dash in 4.62 seconds at the NFL Combine.) Willis was asked last week why he risked it.
"Because I like to compete," Willis said in a telephone interview. "I'm never satisfied with my performance."
Without question, Rang said, Willis' Pro Day guaranteed his standing as the top linebacker in the draft. Linebackers historically have had a hard time breaking into the top 10 because there tends to be a lot of depth at the position and teams know solid players will be available in later rounds. But many draft gurus, including Rang, predict that the Buffalo Bills, in dire need of a middle linebacker, will select him at No. 12.
"He's a star," Rang said. "The more you get into his personal life, the way he's played the injuries, the more of a sure thing you know this guy is going to be. Even though he probably won't go in the top 10, there are only three or four guys along with Patrick Willis who are sure things in this draft."
He played most of the 2005 season with a broken right hand, which was protected by a cast the size of a giant ham. That image of Willis -- rushing menacingly toward the line of scrimmage, wielding his cast like some sort of medieval club -- was featured on the pages of countless Ole Miss football materials last fall, and for good reason. The photo seemed to represent Willis at his best: playing through pain and dealing with adversity to help his team.
Growing up in Bruceton, Tenn., Willis endured a Dickensian childhood. His mother was absent. His father was unreliable. At age 6, Willis was cooking meals for his younger siblings. By the time he was 10, he was picking cotton for long hours under a brutal summer sun. And even after he emerged as a star at Bruceton Central High and later at Ole Miss, he dealt with tragedy. Last summer, his 17-year-old brother Detris drowned while swimming with friends in the gravel pits outside Bruceton.
In other words, Willis possesses a backstory that could have broken him long ago. Instead, facing long odds, he has persevered. At Ole Miss, he was active in the community and beloved by fans. NFL personnel describe him as "high character," two of the most valuable words when it comes to the draft.
"Everyone kind of knows his background, his situation," said Mark Heligman, Willis' marketing agent with SFX Sports Group. "He's just a really good person, a good quality guy. And it's been a joy for us to work with him."
Willis said he has traveled to meet with coaches and front-office executives from the Dallas Cowboys, who have the No. 22 pick in the first round, the Philadelphia Eagles (No. 26), the New England Patriots (No. 24), the Cincinnati Bengals (No. 18), and the Bills. He said he plans to visit at least three more teams this week.
Most of those teams have provided Willis with private jets for his cross-country jaunts, a perk of his newfound status. But if he had his choice, he said, he would avoid those small planes altogether. They make him nervous. Last week, he flew aboard a large Continental airliner from Cincinnati and Buffalo. That, he said, was more his style.
"It's a lot of fun," he said. "I didn't get a chance to travel growing up. Coming from a small town, then going to Ole Miss, we got to play other teams and go to some different places. But it's nothing like the opportunities I have now, to get to see different cities and meet new people. It's just a lot of fun."
Willis, the SEC's defensive player of the year last fall, has somehow managed to retain an endearing innocence about him, and in many ways, Heligman said, Willis is naive to the ways of the world. Heligman said his responsibilities, at this early stage, include educating Willis about the challenges that can arise during the swift transition from poor college student one day to professional millionaire the next.
When a call to Willis' cell phone this week went unanswered, he promptly replied with a text message: "I'm in a meeting."
"There are so many people trying to get to him, whether it's the media, the fans, the unsavory business people out there are who trying to take advantage of these athletes," Heligman said. "And I think financially, they have to get accustomed to having money for the first time in their lives. We've done a lot of deals for Patrick, and those checks are starting to come in. So that's an adjustment he has to make, just learning how to deal with budgeting."
Ole Miss, meantime, got a taste of Willis-free living this spring, and the experiment was predictable. He will be tough, probably impossible, to replace. The Rebels were 4-8 with him last fall, and they would have been far worse without him. That much was apparent during the team's annual intrasquad Grove Bowl earlier this month, after which Orgeron emphasized that his defense up the middle "was not very physical."
So as the Rebels seek to fill the hole left by Willis, they will keep a close eye on his future. Orgeron said he expects Willis to be the highest draft choice in the history of Ole Miss' defense. Freddie Joe Nunn (1985) and Tony Bennett (1990), both linebackers, were selected with the 18th picks in their respective drafts.
"That's a big deal for us," Orgeron said. "Patrick put us on the national map."
Willis said he will be home in Bruceton on draft day, when his Under Armour commercial will debut on ESPN.
Until then, he plans to stay out of the rain. The clouds have cleared for Willis, who is enjoying nothing but sunshine.
-- Scott Cacciola: 529-2773
