Dez Bryant's Past

The Background Check 

The people in the NFL draft take into consideration a lot more than we know.  They weigh in many little factors besides just stats and numbers.  They look at the background of each player and try to understand them.  Players are not simply judged based on how they perform at a college level.  Nor are they simply judged based on how they performed in the combine. On NFL.com they discuss the background checks they go through for players.

When people try to predict the players to be drafted, they are more often than not, dead wrong.  The people making the decisions are looking at every single detail about the players.  Not just combine stats.  Scouts want to draft players that they can trust on their team.  They don’t want players who are known for getting into trouble all the time, or that had a bad rep.  At the same time they are able to see the golden boys for their team.  They see players that grew up from nothing and had to work their way to the top.  People who really are respectable and great players.

Dez Bryant, a wide receiver for the dallas cowboys, is known to be quite the emotional player.  They talked about his background check as one of the worst they had ever seen.  “Bryant was raised by a single, often-absentee mother who spent 18 months in prison for selling crack cocaine. He grew up impoverished and without direction, which explains his “lack of life skills" and ignorance of basic adult responsibilities entering the NFL.” Seeing this really stands out to scouts.  Dez Bryant appeared to have a bad background, but in reality he never got into any trouble himself.  He was a clean cut kid and did well.  Sure he is emotional, but that is probably from his tough life growing up.  It is really amazing that Dez was able to rise to the top from so little.