Former NFL player reveals weird questions scouts asked him at the NFL Combine

TRYING out for a sports franchise is basically a job interview, but HR would have some serious issues if these questions were asked anywhere else.

ORCHARD PARK, NY - AUGUST 27:Austen Lane #92 of the Jacksonville Jaguars plays against the Buffalo Bills at Ralph Wilson Stadium on August 27, 2011 in Orchard Park, New York. Buffalo won 35-32 in overtime. (Photo by Rick Stewart/Getty Images)

YOU know those awful first dates you go on where you get hammered with question after question that you’re not sure how to answer?

Be honest, you definitely do.

The rendezvous that make you question your life choices because the person sitting opposite you in the restaurant (table at McDonald’s) keeps grilling you about when you’ll get promoted at work, what your five and 10-year plans are and when you’re going to move out of that sharehouse and get your own place.

Well, going to the NFL Combine is a lot like one of those first dates, only much, much weirder.

We know that because former NFL player Austen Lane tweeted some of the questions scouts asked him when he attended the Combine before the Jacksonville Jaguars drafted him in 2010. And boy there are some doozies. Take a look for yourself.

When a scout at the combine asked me... "If you could kill someone and not get caught, would you?" pic.twitter.com/mwK5UX8gvW

— Austen Lane (@A_Train_92) February 23, 2016

When a scout at the combine asked me if I thought my mother was attractive. pic.twitter.com/FPwc6OVdtj

— Austen Lane (@A_Train_92) February 23, 2016

When a coach made the statement during my combine interview... "I see you have dreads, you smoke weed don't you?" pic.twitter.com/fu2BLm55uF

— Austen Lane (@A_Train_92) February 23, 2016

When a scout asked me at the combine if I had to murder someone: Would I use a gun or a knife? pic.twitter.com/R5BHMxiDM7

— Austen Lane (@A_Train_92) February 23, 2016

When a scout at the combine asked me "boxers or briefs". pic.twitter.com/6IwjeszYBD

— Austen Lane (@A_Train_92) February 23, 2016

Based on these, we can only assume potential draftees spend as much time lying down on a leather couch at the Combine as they do on the field performing 40-yard sprints or in the gym bench pressing absurd weights.

Or if they don’t, then surely they’ll head to the nearest therapist’s office afterwards to try and get over being asked whether they’d prefer to murder someone with a gun or knife, or if they were a boxers or briefs kind of guy.

It must be asked, then, how do you even answer questions like those?

Well, if you’re Cam Newton, you don’t.

According to ESPN, when the Carolina Panthers quarterback was asked a nonsensical question in 2011, he gave the most logical answer he could think of.

“During an interview with a team psychologist of an AFC North team at the combine, Newton was asked whether he sees himself more as a cat or a dog. When he suggested that the question was not relevant and that he saw himself more as a human being, he was immediately asked whether he had a problem with authority,” Tim Keown wrote last month.

US sports website For the Win reported that players have been asked less intense, but just as bizarre questions in the past. New England Patriots safety Devin McCourty was reportedly asked what superpower he’d want, while scouts wanted to know if Geno Atkins of the Cincinnati Bengals preferred McDonald’s or Burger King.

We guess the club that drafted him wanted to know where to take him out for a celebratory dinner after signing a contract.

They sure do things differently in the US, don’t they?