Other Horns hoping for their NFL paycheck too

Five dozen men with note pads blew into town Tuesday night and spent all day Wednesday in Austin, just the latest on a long list of college football towns.

The 60 NFL scouts were there to see Brian Orakpo for sure, but it was the others — the Texas Longhorns with uncertain professional futures — who had more to lose on pro timing day.

So who performed the best? We don't really know, because in the world of the NFL, no team wants to show its hand. Why say Henry Melton looked great when the team picking in front of you may scoop him up before you? So mum was the other word. All we had was the word of the athletes and a couple of personnel men not afraid to speak.

That's why the scouts show up every year, for that player others might miss. Texas has produced at least two first-rounders in six of the nine NFL drafts this decade, including Vince Young, whose pro timing day workout in 2006 included 18 of his family members, a trick-play touchdown catch on a pass from teammate Brian Carter and a surprise 40-yard dash that came after he indicated he wouldn't be running.

But others, such as Marcus Wilkins, Lyle Sendlein and Ahmard Hall, have gone on to have productive careers without the benefit of getting drafted.

So friends, family, and agents gathered on the balcony of the Moncrief-Neuhaus workout facility, watching NFL power brokers measure, time and evaluate college athletes who have sweated over the last three months in hopes of transitioning from playing for free to making a living in pro ball.

Players such as wideout Quan Cosby, who is the modern version of former Longhorns tight end Bo Scaife. Cosby — undersized at 5 feet, 9 inches and over-aged at 26 — is taking both perceived slights as positives. One of the best possession receivers to come through here, his 92 catches for 1,123 yards got him plenty of notice the past season.

Now he's gone from college student/athlete to a married father of two looking to make a living. Cosby is one of those character guys out to play himself into the upcoming draft.

Most projections say he will be picked in a later round, if at all. If all goes well, he will get picked in the third or fourth round and make an NFL roster as a special-teams player with the ability to move up as his career progresses. He didn't run the 40 on Wednesday, but said he clocked a 4.2 on the cone drill and lifted 225 pounds 16 times on the bench, not bad for a wideout.

"I think Cosby really helped himself," said NFL draft expert Gil Brandt. "He's a lot stronger than you think he is and he plays bigger than his size. We watched some film together and he knows coverages. He broke down the Ohio State defense and he was able to tell me exactly what they were doing on defense. He's a smart kid who knows what he's doing."

He's also smart enough to know the draft odds are usually stacked against smaller receivers. For every Steve Smith and Santana Moss, there are dozens more who will take a backseat on draft day to bigger specimens like Larry Fitzgerald and Calvin Johnson.

Cosby is not only battling the size differential, but also facing of, all things, age discrimination.

"The guys who come out early may not peak until they are 24 or 25," said Cosby, who has a scheduled workout with the Denver Broncos on Friday. "At my age, I'm going to go in there rolling."

Cosby said watching Orakpo work out took his breath away, but I was more impressed with 313-pound Roy Miller clocking a 4.88 in the 40-yard dash. Miller, just like Cosby, is a player who could go in the mid to late rounds. He played at 290 last fall — a bit undersized for an NFL tackle — so he's loaded up on pasta the last couple of months to add some girth.

"I'm glad I came out here and showed I was kind of fast," Miller said. "It was a long offseason and I wanted to show (the scouts) I could run with the added weight."

Texas coach Mack Brown said the NFL team that passes on Miller will make a mistake, and mentioned the curious case of Sendlein, the center who went undrafted in 2006 despite having the second most plays from scrimmage for UT. Sendlein started for the Arizona Cardinals last season.

In the end, it's a crapshoot. Those five dozen souls know their stuff, and the teams they represent will hit more than they miss when the draft rolls around. As for the athletes on display Wednesday, more remains. More workouts. More timings. More bench presses.

The draft will be here soon. Orakpo's work is done. He's a millionaire-in-waiting, but the others are hoping the work they put in will lead to future paydays on Sunday afternoons.

"All you can do is hope and pray as all those names are being called out," Melton said. "I would love to hear my name called that day."