The 2011 Senior Bowl offers Jake Locker a chance to shine in front of a wide array of NFL scouts and draft analysts alike this week in Mobile, Alabama. The game itself is of less importance; it's the practices, workouts and drills that carry the most weight this week in the eyes of scouts. With scouts and draft-gurus trying to project Locker, the work he does this week could go a long way toward determining where Locker projects by the time the draft rolls around in April.
The festivities kicked off this morning in Alabama with the tradition weigh-in, the first of many for NFL prospects. According to National Football Post's Wes Bunting, Locker checked in at 6-foot-2.25, 228 pounds, about three-quarters of an inch shorter than his listed height. CBS Sports' Rob Rang thinks his shorter than expected height may have be a problem in the eyes of scouts.
Again, the 3/4 of an inch doesn't sound like a big difference, but one of the elements that scouts had liked about Locker was his prototypical size. It isn't fair to list Locker's size as an attribute when he's only a 1/4" inch taller than TCU's Andy Dalton and 3/4" of an inch taller than Alabama's Greg McElroy -- two QBs who have been often knocked for their lack of ideal height in the past.
With the weigh-ins out of the way, the players hit the field for drills. For Locker, that meant throwing in a skeleton situation without a pass rush. By itself, the session doesn't mean much -- it's the first of many he'll be run through -- but how he throws throughout the week will be the focus of many NFL scouts looking to gauge his accuracy and how he will project as an NFL quarterback.
The workouts can be seen on NFL Network all week, with the game set to take place on Saturday at 1 p.m. For the latest on Locker and teammate Mason Foster, stay tuned to our StoryStream throughout the week.