At his Pro Day press conference today, Virginia Tech CB Caleb Farley said he recently held a Zoom meeting with Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“I spoke on a zoom call with Pittsburgh and Coach Tomlin was on there,” Farley said. “And I feel like we had a great conversation. I really enjoyed speaking with him and I felt like he had a lot of good points for me to take in and take his advice and I’m excited to see how that relationship goes.”
Farley was unable to work out following a back surgery that will sideline him for the next few months. However, he said his back feels good and he’s expected to be healthy and ready for training camp.
He went on to explain his injury history.
“Yes, I would love to go over it again, just from a lot of misinformation in the media at the time, But, yeah, just an original deadlift injury that had herniated my L5 disc and bulged my S1. I had chose to move forward and do the discectomy on the L5 herniation, which gave me immediate relief after. Still has some lingering sciatica symptoms that I felt but did not limit me physically in any way. It was just something that I kind of was, you know, informed and trusting in that it was just post operative surgery that would go away over time, which I did a great job managing over a year.
“But that bulge was still in my S1 and unfortunately I irritated it a month ago, which caused me to pull back on my training. I was trying to cut back and manage the inflammation to come out here on pro day and put out some crazy numbers. But after talking to Dr. Watkins and getting the MRI and getting things looked at, we was advised it was best to go ahead and fix this problem so that I’d be ready for training camp and be ready for the season. It was not a reoccurring disc or anything like that. What I had previously had worked on is still intact and it was great news. I’m actually excited about the news.”
Farley is in the mix to be the top corner taken in this draft though the injury may prevent that. Listed at 6’2, 207, he has the size NFL teams covet to match up against big receivers on the outside that have become commonplace in the league.
Tomlin gave Farley advice in his Zoom call.
“Just to stay true to myself and not be affected by media reports and things or people just talking negative negative about my situation as if I’m injury prone or things of that nature. It’s really just unfortunate how the timing of things played out and I feel like I could have handled it better.”
This pre-draft process is critical for a guy like Farley, who opted out of the 2020 season. Without a Combine or Pro Day workout, teams will have to rely on the interview process and his 2018-2019 tape to evaluate him.
Pittsburgh has at least communicated with several of the big-name corners in this draft class. They’ve also met and spoken with South Carolina corner Jaycee Horn, widely projected to be the #1 corner taken. The Steelers have a bigger need at corner with the loss of slot corner Mike Hilton to the Bengals and their release of Steven Nelson earlier this week.
Check out our full report on Farley below.
