On Friday night of the Sweet 16 in the NCAA men’s tournament, the cat got out of the bag. All 6-foot-9 and 275 pounds of him.
Reese’s Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy was sitting on his couch at home, watching 11th seeded NC State put away No. 2 seed Marquette, and he couldn’t take his eyes off Wolfpack forward DJ Burns. In that moment, Nagy was like most audiences that have watched NC State’s Cinderella run to the Final Four, smitten with the energy, skill and infectious smile that have turned Burns into one of this tournament’s most enjoyable social media water cooler conversations. The only difference? Nagy had thoughts of Burns in football pads, pulling around the end of an NFL offensive line and blowing up a linebacker, or sliding into pass protection on a quarterback’s blind side.
This is the football evaluator’s curse. When encountering uncommon size, length or agility away from a football field, their brain starts …