STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Brandon Bryant was out of bed at 7 a.m. Monday preparing for a huge step in his football future -- a workout for NFL scouts at Mississippi State University in advance of the 2018 NFL Supplemental Draft, which will be held July 11. But for Bryant, the workout wouldn't be the tough part.
"This process has been pretty crazy, just meeting with all these teams and trying to show them what I can do, and let them know what happened to put me in this position," Bryant said. "But the athleticism part, I knew that would come easy."
Indeed, it did.
With representatives from 14 NFL clubs on hand, Bryant ran official 40-yard dash times of 4.45 and 4.52, per NFL.com senior analyst Gil Brandt, vertical jumped 34 inches and turned in a broad jump of 10-3. In agility drills, he ran 3-cone drill times of 7.26 and 7.52, with a 20-yard shuttle clocking of 4.23. He opted not to perform in the bench press. Scouts from the Atlanta Falcons, Oakland Raiders, Baltimore Ravens, New Orleans Saints, Houston Texans, Pittsburgh Steelers, Los Angeles Rams, Cleveland Browns, New York Jets, Washington Redskins, Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants were on hand for the morning workout. Among those, the Colts and Ravens were his favorite interviews.
"Those teams really stuck out to me the most. I had a great conversation with those guys," Bryant said. "But wherever I get drafted or if it's as a free agent, I just need an opportunity and I'll make the most of it."
Toward the end of his workout, during position drills, Bryant suffered a flare-up of a shin splint that cut his performance short. But by that point, he had already shown scouts the athletic traits that made him one of Path to the Draft's fastest and most freakish athletes in college football the past two years.
"It felt a lot like a cramp, but I tried to fight through it as much as I could," Bryant said. "I actually hurt it during training for this, working on broad jumps."
Bryant was a three-year starter for the Bulldogs, making more than 150 career tackles, though he struggled to develop a reputation as a playmaker with just one interception in each of the last two seasons. A host of clubs met with Bryant privately on Sunday, and following his workout, several more pulled him aside, including the Redskins, Texans, Steelers, Colts, Jaguars and 49ers.
The NFL supplemental draft allows players who become draft-eligible after the regular draft an opportunity to be selected, though teams typically don't make a pick. Bryant was withheld from spring practice at MSU for academic reasons, and later announced his plan to withdraw from school. A team that drafts a player in the supplemental draft forfeits a draft pick in the corresponding round in the following year's regular draft. This year's field for the supplemental draft is stronger than usual, with three defensive backs considered legitimate possibilities for selection: Bryant, former Virginia Tech DB Adonis Alexander, and former Western Michigan DB Sam Beal.
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