SI piece on Warmack: Weight presents double-edged sword for linemen prospects...

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There were many fine performances at Alabama's pro day on March 13 in Tuscaloosa, but none so intense, so all-in, so loud as the effort put forth by Scott Cochran, the Crimson Tide strength coach whose Klaxon voice provided a frenetic, urgent sound track to the proceedings.

Make today count! Finish stronger! Speed! Speed! Speed! SPEED!

Cochran could moonlight as an announcer at monster truck rallies, yet even this chronic extrovert fell silent after Chance Warmack took his second turn at the vertical jump. With scouts and coaches from all 32 NFL teams watching, the 6-foot-2, 317-pound guard exploded from his stance ... and was immediately snatched back to Earth as if by some invisible bungee cord. It was the least impressive vertical leap of the day. And yet scouts could not have cared less.

Teams don't need Warmack to dunk basketballs. They need him to be a road grader in the running game, a bridge abutment anchoring the pocket. He is a brute with a high football IQ, a technically proficient mauler with strong hands and sweet feet. And for that he could go higher in the draft than any guard since 1997, when the Saints took Chris Naeole 10th out of Colorado.

Warmack was one of a handful of prospective offensive and defensive linemen who agreed to pose shirtless for SI, revealing the raw clay from which tomorrow's All-Pros will be sculpted. And while a few looked conventionally athletic, most carried various layers of fat: over pectorals devoid of definition; around doughy midsections and pachyderm-like posteriors. Photographed at various states of preparation for the NFL combine and pro days, some could just as easily have been girding themselves for hibernation.

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