Texas defensive tackle Byron Murphy II was already off the board by the time the Pittsburgh Steelers selected at No. 20. Murphy went to Seattle with the 16th overall pick. And while he’s focused on getting started with his new team, Murphy recalled an unusual interaction with the Steelers during his NFL Scouting Combine meeting with them in Indianapolis.
Murphy appeared on the Hawkblogger podcast to explain what happened.
“The weirdest thing I did, I was meeting with Pittsburgh,” Murphy told host Brian Nemhauser. “They made me face a wall. Made me do something with my hands and squat all the way down. And then made me do it again. I guess they were just trying to see how flexible they was. But I’m like, ‘Man, what is this?'”
By the way, if you’re wondering why Byron Murphy has a Steelers banner behind him, he told the show he recorded the interview in his brother’s room. He’s not a Steelers fan.
We already knew Murphy held a formal Combine interview with the Steelers, though their interest beyond that wasn’t very visible. While perhaps strange to him, and it seems the Steelers were the only team to make such a request, those kinds of tests are actually pretty common on the scouting trail. In the few Pro Days I’ve attended, I made the same observation at Villanova way back in 2015 on Bloomsburg ILB Justin Shirk.
” Shirk had a strong day, participating at linebacker and like most of his teammates, receiving some work at fullback. His numbers: ran in the 4.6s, repped 225 30 times, jumped 33.5 inches in the vertical, and recorded a 9’7” in the broad.
The Eagles pulled him aside after the workout, chatting with him for roughly 10 minutes and snapping some pictures to see his flexibility and bend.”
The Eagles did the same, putting Shirk up on the wall of the dome facility the Pro Day was held, taking pictures as he positioned himself in different ways.
Flexibility is as important as any other physical and athletic trait. If you’re a linear player, if you can’t bend and turn, you’re not going to thrive no matter the position. But for linemen, it’s even more critical being able to bend and drop their weight. Hips, hands, and feet are the foundation of trench play. If you can’t get low, you won’t corner through a block, or you’ll get uprighted in the run game.
Though I’m not sure if it’s a test today, the Combine has had these quirky tests in the past. Here’s a 13-year-old clip of offensive linemen asked to lay on their stomach, hold a wooden stick behind their backs, and lift up their arms as high as they could. That measurement would be recorded, just like a broad jump. It was designed to measure flexibility even though the literal application, putting your arms behind your back while laying face down, is the last thing that would ever happen on the football field.
The only perhaps interesting part of it was Murphy was at his Combine interview. In street clothes, in a room with Steelers personnel, and doing this test in probably a place where there wasn’t a ton of breathing room. So point well taken on that. But Murphy went through a test many other players likely do throughout the pre-draft process. Ultimately, he became the second defensive player selected in this year’s historically offensive draft and the first defensive lineman off the board. And the Steelers went offensive line with Troy Fautanu. No word on if Pittsburgh had him do the same.
Catch the whole interview with Byron Murphy II below.
