It’s a sign of the changing times in the NFL that it is hard to find too many people who think the running back who scored the most touchdowns in college football’s highest classification is worth a first-round pick.
Montee Ball got in the end zone 83 times and ran for 5,140 yards during his career at Wisconsin, but he’s hearing a lot of pundits say that he isn’t a special enough running back to go high in the draft. Ball, citing Curtis Martin and Terrell Davis as examples of other players given the same evaluation, says that he’s just fine with that label.
“They say I’m not special,” Ball said, via Pat Yasinskas of ESPN.com. “They say I’m not especially fast. They say I’m not especially big. Well, fine, I’ll take that as a compliment. They’re not tearing me apart. They’re just saying that I don’t do one thing special. So what? If you’re pretty good all the way around, then you can be a very good running back.”
Yasinskas spoke to Ball at the IMG Academy in Florida where the back is working out with former NFL quarterback Chris Weinke and others to prepare for the combine and team workouts leading up to the draft. Weinke had good things to say about Ball’s pass-catching ability and consistency (not that you’d expect anything else from someone paid to prepare Ball for the pros) and those two things will be vital to Ball’s chances of becoming the very good running back he hopes to become in the NFL.