Away from the cacophony of Radio City Hall, away from the backdrop of madness that surely will become the 2009 NFL Draft green room, DeAndre Wright will be in Maryland, Va. - his hometown - spoon in hand, crunching and munching on a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
A television set won't be on. Not an utterance from Chris Berman. No instant analysis from Mel Kiper Jr. Just the sound of Wright pouring away.
"I'm not going to be watching the draft," Wright said firmly. "I'm not going to watch no ESPN - nothing. I just might sit at home Saturday morning, eating a bowl of cereal, and I'm just going to watch cartoons. If I get a phone call, I'm going to pack my stuff up and get ready to go."
Ian Clark said that's who his dreadlocked friend is.
"I can imagine him saying that," Clark said.
Wright says he will be secluded - no draft party. Four years of being on an island in Rocky Long's 3-3-5 defensive scheme made him that way.
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"No, no, nothing - it's going to be a regular day for me," Wright said. "I'm probably the only dude in the U.S. that ain't nervous about this draft."
He can't be nervous. He's a cornerback. If there's one emotion you can't exude in the position, Clark said, it's anxiety.
"You have to be able to mellow out when it's one of those crunch-time situations," he said. "Playing cornerback is one of the mentally most challenging positions on the field. You're out there on an island all by yourself."
Wright's decision to abstain from watching the draft speaks to who he is. Everything about him is unconventional.
Even Clark doesn't necessarily understand his eccentric teammate.
"It's a big moment in your life," Clark said. "I don't think anybody that's involved in the process of making it to the NFL - there isn't anybody that's not going to be worried. It'd be unnatural not to be worried about it."
Who said anything about Wright being natural? He's a converted cornerback. In high school, he was the one lowering his shoulder and prancing through holes, not chopping running backs at the knee in the backfield.
A peculiar player, Wright is the antonym of mainstream. He does the opposite of what seems reasonable.
After re-injuring his bum shoulder against Utah toward the end of the 2008 season, everybody, Wright's teammates included, believed he was going to pack it in for the season. Instead, Wright missed one game but opted to return for the Lobos' season finale at Colorado State. Mind you, nothing was at stake - just Wright's future. UNM was already ineligible for a bowl game.
"Everybody was out of the locker room and I just put my shoulder pads on and came out there," Wright recalls. "Everybody's jaws dropped. You don't get to do this twice. It was my decision. I didn't have to play if I didn't want to play. Everybody thought I wasn't going to come back and play because they thought I was worried about my NFL career when that wasn't even promised to me at that point in time. It's not guaranteed. But what was guaranteed to me that day is that I could go out there."
Wright says only two teams have expressed considerable interest in the Gwynn Park High School product. The New Orleans Saints and the New England Patriots are two likely suitors, even though Wright says he's on most teams' draft boards.
"I've been getting phone calls like crazy," he said.
But he doesn't care where he lands because, as he so candidly put it, "You wouldn't care if they was paying you, would you?" And the fact remains, he might not be drafted. Si.com has Wright being picked up in free agency, not the draft.
From all the text compiled about Wright, teams have two main concerns: First, He's over-aggressive and bites hard on double-move routes but doesn't have the recovery speed to make up the ground. At the NFL Combine, Wright ran a 4.59 in the 40-yard dash, though he said two NFL scouts clocked him at 4.47 on Pro Day in New Mexico on March 12. And second, teams are concerned about his durability, meaning the shoulder.
But Wright remains loose, explaining that, "After you get on the team, that's when the stress really kicks in because you're going to be battling for a starting job."
True to form, Wright remains an oddball - unaffected by the circumstances.
And Clark said that's the reason teams need to give him a chance. He's simply different.
"DeAndre would be making his cut at the same exact time as the receiver," he said.
When Sunday rolls around and all the hubbub subsides, Wright will just hope he can say that a regular day for him involves a 100-yard grass prairie, a set of shoulder pads and a shiny professional helmet - with room for his hair, of course.
"He keeps saying he's going to cut them off," Clark said. "He's not going to do it."
