CB.com kicks off ''Drafting Kamerion'' seriesZac Jackson, Staff Writer
04.06.2007
The following story appeared in last month's edition of Browns Huddle magazine and serves as the kickoff to ClevelandBrowns.com's three-part video series, "Drafting Kamerion."
On the morning of April 29, 2006, Phil Savage was calm and confident.
Sure, he was anxious. But it was a positive, upbeat kind of anxious. The Browns were just four hours and 11 picks from getting the player they'd wanted for months, Kamerion Wimbley, in the first round 2006 NFL Draft.
It had been seven months since Savage first studied Wimbley up close, and not long after the Browns general manager began sharing his positive opinions with other high-ranking people in the Browns' organization. As the months passed, they'd identified a pass-rushing outside linebacker as one of the Browns' most pressing needs and reached a consensus that Wimbley was the top available draft prospect to fill that need.
They'd seen him dominate college games against top-flight competition. They'd seen him come back from an injury that cut his regular season short to play in the Orange Bowl and the Senior Bowl. They'd seen him shine among other stars at the Senior Bowl, then watched Wimbley meet -- and surpass -- expectations as a person and student of the game in his personal interviews with the Browns.
He was what Savage called "a special player" and what TJ McCreight, the Browns' assistant director of player personnel and a longtime Savage friend and confidant, called "a slam dunk."
All the Browns needed was the chance to draft him.
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Wimbley was never a full-time starter until his senior season at Florida State. He had been a contributor since first arriving though, using his rare athletic ability to earn a special teams role as a freshman and playing in pass-rush situations as a sophomore and junior.
His senior year brought his first chance to hold down the right defensive end spot from Game One, and he made a very nice first impression. FSU beat the University of Miami in a nationally-televised Labor Day game, a defensive-dominated slugfest that was ugly to the casual football fan and very forgettable for Miami offensive tackle Eric Winston, a highly-touted prospect who ended up being drafted by the Texans at the top of the third round.
Browns Hall of Fame wide receiver Paul Warfield, now a scout and consultant with the team, was at that game.
"Eric Winston...was deemed as one of the best offensive linemen in college football last year," Warfield said. "Wimbley created so much havoc and pressure on Winston that the University of Miami needed to give him help. It changed the course of that ballgame."
Savage watched that game on film a few weeks later.
"It was the first series of the game that Kamerion used his patented shoulder duck to get up underneath the tackle (Winston)," Savage said. "And I remember writing in my notepad that one move was more than any of our current guys had."
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The Browns' scouts made their regularly scheduled visits to Florida State throughout the fall. Savage's came in October -- a standard mid-week visit that included plenty of film study, talks with the medical staff, strength coach and other relevant people, as well as a look at practice.
Scouts go to college games and practices with a list of players to watch. At a place like Florida State, though, it's more like a laundry list. There are so many good players, so many top-shelf athletes, that it can be tough for a player to really distinguish himself from the crowd.
"But you could pick out Kamerion from afar," Browns director of player personnel Bill Rees said. "He has a tremendous stature about him. The long arms, well-built...he's unique. That wasn't hard to pick up."
Pat Roberts, the Browns' national scout, remembered seeing a younger version of Wimbley when Roberts was scouting the Southeast region for the Bears. Rees made his own visit to Florida State and shared his thoughts with Savage, who'd already heard positive things from Warfield.
"The very first time I saw Kamerion in person I said, 'This is the prototype' -- the arm length, the knee bend, the athletic ability, the flexibility," Savage said. "After having watched him on film, I heard from the strength coach and heard from the trainer that he was an A-plus person.
"And I remember walking to my car that day after practice thinking, 'Hey, this might be one of our guys.' "
Savage said he later got an e-mail from a Florida State assistant endorsing Wimbley as "the best kid he'd ever worked with in 19 years." Warfield said people inside the Florida State program assured him that Wimbley was "a prized pupil."
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Wimbley finished his senior season with 7.5 sacks, 17 quarterback pressures and 4 pass breakups. He missed two games late in the year with a knee sprain, but came back to play in the Orange Bowl and the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., at the end of January.
By then, every Browns coach and scout knew to watch him. But he was still playing as a 4-3 defensive end, so there was still some guesswork involved.
The NFL game is different; it's faster, the schemes are more complex, the individual demands placed upon each player -- both on and off the field -- are more intense. Every NFL draft pick is a projection, and the projection of a college defensive end to a 3-4 outside linebacker might be the most difficult of them all.
"Until you sit down and get to know the player, see him in an individual workout, you really don't know," Rees said.
McCreight spends most of his year working with pro personnel and doesn't see most draft prospects in person until the Senior Bowl. When he saw Wimbley there, he saw an impressive physical specimen who not only looked the part, but looked like he belonged with the top-flight athletes in Mobile that week.
A Senior Bowl-record 15 players from the '06 game became first-round selections.
"He did a great job against great competition," McCreight said. "That's when I thought he could be our pick."
"I thought that he just made sense for us," Browns pro personnel coordinator Steve Sabo said. "He was a good person; his background checked out well. He was productive, he was athletic, he was explosive.
"Everything really fit."
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The thoughts began to match up, and Wimbley's scheduled interview three weeks later at the NFL Scouting Combine with a room full of Browns coaches and scouts became the most-anticipated of the 60 they'd scheduled.
Of course he knocked that out, too.
Wimbley came in knowing all about the Browns, as much as he could know about the 3-4 defense, and was more than willing to share the reasons he thought he could be successful in transitioning to outside linebacker.
"What struck me was his seriousness and demeanor; he carried himself like a football player," McCreight said. "He was football smart. He knew about our team and our defense. A lot of these college players don't know anything about NFL football. Kamerion knew about our team and he knew what it takes to be an outside linebacker."
"When you meet Kamerion," Rees said, "you know that he's not cut from the same cloth that a lot of kids are."
He performed well while doing combine drills designed for both defensive linemen and linebackers. Savage, Warfield, Browns head coach Romeo Crennel and defensive coordinator Todd Grantham were then part of the Browns' contingent that attended Wimbley's pro day workout at Florida State in early March and watched him do linebacker-specific drills. He probably didn't need to cement his spot at the top of the Browns' wish list, but he might have anyway.
"When he jumped into the workout and went through the linebacker drops, there was no question in my mind that he could be an outside linebacker," Grantham said. "From that day on, I knew he was the guy we had to get."
Wimbley visited the Browns facility in late March, spending a day meeting all the coaches and personnel men and getting a feel for the place the Browns hoped he'd be spending much of his time in. There was no doubt he sat at the top of the Browns' wish list.
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At noon on April 29, the men who'd decided Wimbley was the best choice for the Browns settled into their war room seats and watched as the draft began to unfold.
Savage felt like there was "a good chance" the Browns would get their man. Few knew he'd already had discussions with his old boss, Ozzie Newsome, about a potential trade down that would allow the Browns to pick up an extra pick and still get Wimbley.
Others felt some nerves. McCreight and Sabo had identified other teams picking before 12 -- and some behind who may entertain thoughts of trading up -- they worried might have interest. Rees said he was cautiously optimistic -- "you never know in the draft. It only takes one team to mess up your plans."
"Of course I was worried," Grantham said. "I felt all along he was the best outside linebacker in the draft."
The anxious moments never turned into disappointing ones, though. The Browns had feigned enough interest in Oregon defensive lineman Haloti Ngata to make the Ravens believe they may draft him. Savage was confident the Ravens wouldn't take Wimbley, so he settled for a sixth-round choice as the price to swap spots, move down to 13, and let the Ravens draft Ngata.
"That was the safe bet," he said. "We didn't want to miss out on Kamerion."
One outstanding rookie season and 11 sacks later, the Browns remain pleased they didn't.
"It makes everything worthwhile when you can get started in the Fall, following a guy, and you go through the entire process and get him," Rees said. "Then to have him pan out so well, it makes all the hard work worth it."
McCreight said "there was some backslapping, some high-fives, some relief" in the war room when the Browns selected Wimbley -- and more of the same when they saw how well he fit.
"He had 11 sacks," Grantham said. "And there's no doubt in my mind he can get better."
Said Savage: "There's no reason to think he won't have an outstanding, Pro Bowl-caliber career."
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