All photos by Bill Chackhes - SBS and FieldPosition.com Ja Marcus Russell's pictured above.
This is part one and two of our five part NFL Draft Video series. The National Football League has it's media lunch on the Thursday prior to the draft and that was true again for the 2007 NFL Draft.
This event, held at Chelsea Piers, had the five invited NFL Draft players -- Ja Marcus Russell, Brady Quinn, Adrian Peterson, Calvin Johnson, and Gains Adams -- on hand for interviews and photo ops with the invited media, including us.
Some of the highlights were Ja Marcus Russell's admission that he'd not got a call from the Oakland Raiders -- though I believe he was coached to say that -- and Brady Quinn's comment that the offense the Oakland Raiders (who have the first pick) are installing is very much like the system he worked in at Notre Dame, which in turn is like the Patriots offense.
On that note, Quinn mentioned in the video below that he met New England Patriots signal caller Tom Brady the previous evening. He commented that Brady was a lot of help in assisting Quinn in how to think about what was happening to him.
Brady Quinn also went on quite a rant about how people make judgements about him without really watching film, saying "I mean, if I throw an incompletion, do they see why," or words to that effect. It was quite a show and demonstrates just how worked up he is over being over-analyzed by everyone.
Ja Marcus Russell presented himself as simply "smooth": very soft-spoken and warm in his approach.
Adrian Peterson seemed the most amused by it all. He comments that of all the players, he should go number one to the Raiders. Period.
Gaines Adams is the elder statesman of the group. He's not older, but he seems that way. Very grounded. Calvin Johnson is more like Ja Marcus Russell in the way he carries himself and talks.
I asked most of the players if they had experienced any change in the way their friends treated them, and all in different ways said they had not, which is good to report.
In all, the luncheon was quite fun and we've got a lot more video content and news, but I'm off to another NFL Draft event.
But what I could not figure out was why one Raiders representative spent part of his time photoging me from a distance! I'm serious. More on this later!
We ate with Adam Schafter of the NFL Network, Andrea Kramer of ESPN (who's down to just 97 pounds after biking!) and she dropped a news bomb about a certain LA Times sports writer -- Mike Penner -- who decided to become a woman names Christine Daniels!
Here's the video set...remember, it will be in complete five parts in about three hours or so. He're two of them now.
Video Part One:
Video Part Two:
Video Part Three:
Video Part Four:
Video Part Five:
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