NFL draft diary: Duke's Jamison Crowder happy with combine, seeks better 40
USA TODAY Sports has assembled a talented team of prospects to chronicle their paths to the NFL draft. Today's entry is from productive and versatile Duke receiver Jamison Crowder, who had 283 catches for 3,641 yards and 23 touchdowns in four seasons with the Blue Devils.
The combine was a great experience. At the same time, it was pretty tiring and a long three days. I flew in there on Wednesday and was very busy throughout the day — taking psychological testing, going to the hospital and getting X-rays and everything to make sure the body is durable. The last day, we go out there and test, run the 40, run routes, do different speed and agility testing.
When you first get down there, going through your interviews, you're a little bit nervous. But once you get through one or two, you calm your nerves down. You make sure you stay on your toes, because every team that you meet with, they try to throw you different questions. It's intense. You've got to make sure you're on your Ps and Qs. It's kind of all a blur, because most of the interviews get repetitive. But at the end of the day, they want to see your football IQ.
The language in our offense at Duke was very simple once you get it down pat. We were a spread offense. We looked to the sideline and got the signals. You might get 'Flip Right Ton 10 X Curl.' The whole little saying would tell everybody what they had. At the Senior Bowl, we had the Tennessee Titans' coaching staff, and the play calls were so complicated because they were new. The plays were a lot longer, too. I had to make sure I listened to everything and really understood where I had to be lined up, in what position, and what were my duties on that play.
At the combine, teams might ask me to go up and draw my favorite route that I ran or my favorite play that I had in college. A lot of times, my favorite route was the post route. That was a route that I had great success on. I drew up a few plays that had been in my mind. I thought I did really well with those. I have a really good understanding of football — knowing the game, understanding plays and concepts.
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When I met with the Chicago Bears' receivers coach, Mike Groh, we went over a play. And right after he got finished going over it, he'd bring out his own sheet of paper, and it had all the alignments of the Xs and Os, and I had to draw the play over again — pretty much explain to him everything that he just explained to me. Sometimes, teams asked me, 'If you've got Cover-2, within your offense, what was your duty to open up the other guys on the field?'
I can't really pinpoint a tough question I was asked. The only thing I can think about was one of the questions on the IQ test was pretty weird. There were like 143 questions, and when I got to question 80-something, one of the questions on there was like, 'Have you ever been on a team that punted on first down?' It's like they were asking, 'Are you still reading the questions?'
On the field, I felt really good about some of the tests. But my 40 time? I know I'm a lot faster than 4.56. I got called back twice with my start. It threw me off a little bit. I had to change up. I'm going to redo my 40 for pro day March 25, and I think I'm going to redo the three-cone drill. But I feel like I did well as far as running routes and catching the football. My vertical leap was 37 — the first time I ever jumped 37 inches. My broad jump was 9 (feet), 7 (inches). I feel comfortable with that.
Now I'm coming back to campus to train. I'm going to get with my offensive coordinator, coach Scottie Montgomery, and my head coach, David Cutcliffe, and those guys focus on running routes, catching the football and then also working on my takeoff with my 40.
Right now, it's all about training.
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Follow Jamison Crowder on Twitter at @JamisonCrowder
