NCAA tournament sensation DJ Burns Jr. has drawn NFL eyeballs — whether he wants them or not

NC State forward DJ Burns Jr. exits the interview room on Thursday in Glendale, Arizona, where his Wolfpack will face Purdue on Saturday in the Final Four of the NCAA men’s tournament. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson )

On Friday night of the Sweet 16 in the NCAA men’s tournament, the cat got out of the bag. All 6-foot-9 and 275 pounds of him.

Reese’s Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy was sitting on his couch at home, watching 11th seeded NC State put away No. 2 seed Marquette, and he couldn’t take his eyes off Wolfpack forward DJ Burns. In that moment, Nagy was like most audiences that have watched NC State’s Cinderella run to the Final Four, smitten with the energy, skill and infectious smile that have turned Burns into one of this tournament’s most enjoyable social media water cooler conversations. The only difference? Nagy had thoughts of Burns in football pads, pulling around the end of an NFL offensive line and blowing up a linebacker, or sliding into pass protection on a quarterback’s blind side.

This is the football evaluator’s curse. When encountering uncommon size, length or agility away from a football field, their brain starts to wonder.

“It’s just where football people’s heads go,” Nagy said this week. “It’s usually frame and skill set. It’s just the intrigue factor. So I fired off a tweet, saying I was having a hard time not seeing him kick-sliding or pulling on run plays. I’m sitting there last Friday night watching the game and I see this big guy, he’s got nimble feet. He can move a little bit, has coordination and body control. He’s moving like he’s moving — and that’s just a big ol’ kid.”

With that one tweet, eyebrows went up in some high places. Not just because Nagy has a long résumé as a football talent evaluator — with multiple NFL teams and now leading the Senior Bowl, which is a cornerstone draft nexus — but also because others in the pro football sphere were thinking it too. Within hours, Nagy got…

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Publish date : 2024-04-05 04:09:59

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