Best of SI: The Search for the NFL Draft’s Most Overlooked Prospect

SI once again set out in search of the draft’s deepest sleeper prospect. We’ve identified him, but for the sake of interested teams, we’ll do our best to conceal his identity. For now, he is simply Prospect X.

Prospect X answers the FaceTime call. It’s late on a Thursday afternoon the week before the draft, though it’s hard to keep track of what day it is anymore. Every day is the same, holed up in his childhood bedroom spending hours on video calls and phone calls with NFL coaches and scouts. X has known the scout now calling for several months, so the conversation begins casually. How was X’s family’s Easter barbecue? How has he been staying in shape during quarantine? The area scout was one of around 20 evaluators who came through his small campus during the season and has kept in touch ever with X ever since. X wears a black baseball hat for this video chat—all the barbershops are closed and his hair has seen better days.

After briefly discussing ’90s R&B music and Topgolf, the scout takes a sip of coffee and cuts to the chase. His team wants X badly but may not be able to draft him, so he needs to figure out whether the interest is mutual should X go undrafted. Does he love me? Does he love me not?

“You been talking to a lot of teams?”

“Yep,” X says confidently. “I’ve been talking with quite a few. Tomorrow I have another video chat with a special teams coordinator with [an NFC team].”

Late-round/priority-free-agent prospects rarely give a straight answer when asked about their team preferences. X is no exception to that rule.

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