The NFL Draft has given us some of the most out-of-bounds moments in sports. Interviewers don’t hold back during the pre-draft process; there are infamous stories of prospects being asked if their mothers were sex workers… Thankfully, rules have been implemented to restrict what teams can ask, but that hasn’t stopped all of the nonsense, and we just got one interesting headline from the Falcons and Arthur Smith.
Peter Skoronski interviewed formally with nearly half of the league — 14 to be exact — but had a noteworthy meeting with Atlanta’s head coach, who made the conversation as uncomfortable as possible.
“The head coach was on me the second I got in there,” Skoronski says of Arthur Smith, via The Athletic. “I was giving them generic answers to their questions, and he said, ‘You’re really boring me right now. Your answers are so boring.’ The whole meeting, he kept looking at his computer. I was kind of laughing to myself and said, ‘Sorry, I don’t know what you want me to do. I’m answering you honestly.’”
I love this entire exchange.
Firstly, I love that prospects are polished before the NFL Combine, giving the most politically correct answers possible, and somehow, some prospects still screw things up after being coached by a public relations team. Secondly, I love that Arthur Smith is into these sorts of mind games to see what’s going to happen when players are put in difficult circumstances.
The Falcons ended up passing on Skoronski, but I highly doubt it has anything to do with this interview or the person. The Northwestern product was always going in the first round, and 8th overall was clearly too rich for Terry Fontenot and Arthur Smith’s blood.
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Photographer: David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire
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