Scouting Combine Quite Often Yields as Many Questions as Answers

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So here was Blaine Gabbert sitting in a room in an "event'' staged by ESPN being "coached'' for the NFL Scouting Combine by Terry Shea, an ex-NFL assistant and one-time head coach at Rutgers on how to "interview'' for teams in Indianapolis.

"What would you say to team that tells you it won't take you?'' Shea asked in his "role'' as an NFL interviewer -- a GM, a coach or a personnel guy.

"That I'll beat your butt for the next 15 years,'' Gabbert replied, told, of course, that it was the correct answer to demonstrate his "competitiveness.''

ESPN was conducting its own reality show.

But it's not the reality that NFL people like very much. Because, quite frankly, as many GMs and coaches point out, "rehearsals'' like the one Shea was running on behalf of Gabbert's agents -- or "handlers'' -- are a lot like rehearsals for theatrical performances. And theatrical performances, as those GMs, coaches and personnel people know, aren't at all real.

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