SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA — Prospect X tightens his grip on his fork. His hand swallows up the frail utensil. He takes a deep breath and sighs it out, shaking his head back and forth to reset.
“Come on!” he shouts as he wills himself to take another giant bite.
The meat lover’s skillet normally comes with two eggs, but X ordered his with four extra. He’s a regular here at this small-town diner, and the waitress jokes he cleans out their fridge “ordering 25 eggs” each time he comes by.
The skillet is the second of three plates of food he absolutely has to put away for lunch. X has already polished off a massive two-patty burger topped with bleu cheese, bacon and another egg. He hit a wall halfway through the six-egg skillet with bacon, ham and sausage. He’s still got a Nutella and banana crepe taunting him on plate No. 3.
X’s tattooed biceps bulge out of a navy blue short-sleeve shirt baring the logo of an NFL team he recently visited. He’s always been a big eater — when he was out to eat with his parents around 8 or 9 years old, he cried at the prospect of ordering off the kid’s menu. “Two chicken fingers?” he says. “What’s that going to do for you?” — but he’s gained nearly 30 pounds this offseason in his quest to get ready for the league.
This kind of extreme eating is tough work. He’s up to 306 pounds, and while he’s training his body to hold that new weight, he has to keep eating. “My mom would be like, ‘Get a to-go box!’” he says. But giving up is not an option. “I know what my goal is, and 300-plus looks way prettier than 290.”
Sitting next to him in the diner booth is his roommate and best friend, his college team’s Australian punter. X offers him a bite of his skillet, and he takes a small forkful. “That was a little-ass bite, bro,” X says.
He fights through the rest of the skillet, sips water, stretches and cheers himself on again. The sweet crepe goes down relatively easily, and he takes a picture of his three spotless plates to send to some of the other prospects he’d trained with this winter — they couldn’t believe how much he’d eat.
He gets tired of eating like this, but this is what it takes when you’re a small-school prospect in a run-down town and the draft is just a week away.
I spent the last two months searching for the most overlooked prospect in the 2024 NFL Draft. After canvassing scouts, tracking the results of pro day workouts, watching tape and strategizing like a general manager, I picked a player I believe is the draft’s best-kept secret: a small school prospect with no combine invite and no top-three all-star game appearance but a good shot to get drafted.
For each of the past five years, readers of this series have made their best guesses as to X’s identity, which will be revealed in a follow-up story after the draft. But for now — to allow him to be honest about the pre-draft process and for the sake of the NFL teams in pursuit — he is “Prospect X.”
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Meet Prospect X, the most overlooked player in the 2024 NFL Draft
2024-04-27 12:50:00
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