NFL draft picks are more than the sum of their career yardage totals, 40-yard-dash times and anonymous scouting reports. They're people, too!
Here's proof:
1. Offensive tackle Ronnie Stanley, Notre Dame (No. 6 overall): Before his senior year at Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas, Stanley showed up to coach a youth football camp in shorts, a T-shirt and a Batman cape. He wore the cape the entire day.
2. Linebacker Kamalei Correa, Boise State (No. 42): Growing up without a natural NFL rooting interest, Correa adopted the Green Bay Packers. "But since April 29, that day has changed, and now I'm a Raven for the rest of my life," he said on a conference call Friday with reporters.
3. Defensive end Bronson Kaufusi, Brigham Young (No. 70): Because of an injury during his senior year of high school and a two-year Mormon mission to Auckland, New Zealand, Kaufusi said he didn't play in a football or basketball game for four years. He did play (touch) rugby, though.
4. Cornerback Tavon Young, Temple (No. 104): Young was awarded the No. 1 jersey, given to the toughest player on Temple, for the team's season opener in 2014, and was so honored for seven of the Owls' first eight games that season.
5. Wide receiver Chris Moore, Cincinnati (No. 107): During a Hawaii Bowl loss to San Diego State, Moore gave a child in the front row a game-used football. It was Christmas Eve, after all. He got penalized.
6. Offensive tackle Alex Lewis, Nebraska (No. 130): Lewis served 28 days in jail in the Boulder (Colo.) County Jail for a conviction of third-degree assault. In May 2013, before transferring from Colorado to Nebraska, Lewis and quarterback Jordan Webb slammed the head of an Air Force cadet into a brick wall and punched him, witnesses told police, knocking him unconscious.
7. Defensive tackle Willie Henry, Michigan (No. 140): Henry was recruited to Michigan by former Ravens defensive coordinator Greg Mattison, now the Wolverines' defensive line coach. A sibling connection didn't hurt his chances of ending up in Baltimore, either. "Coach [Jim] Harbaugh put in a great word with his brother and the Ravens organization," Henry said. John Harbaugh "took a chance on me, and I'm not going to prove him wrong."
8. Running back Kenneth Dixon, Louisiana Tech (No. 134): Dixon scored his then-Football Bowl Subdivision-record 86th career touchdown against Arkansas State in the New Orleans Bowl with the No. 28 on the front of his jersey missing. Bulldogs staffers later removed his nameplate and superglued it onto a No. 1 jersey so that he could finish the game.
9. Defensive end Matt Judon, Grand Valley State (No. 146): Judon joked at the NFL scouting combine that his first NFL paycheck would go toward some Mexican fast food. "I like Taco Bell," he said. "Obviously, I'll have way more money than I know what to do with, but while I'm pondering what I'm going to do with my money, I'll be eating a chalupa or something."
10. Wide receiver Keenan Reynolds, Navy (No. 182): Reynolds took six classes during the fall semester of his senior year at the Naval Academy, according to The Guardian: Financial Analysis, National Security Decision Making in the Cyber Age, Politics of Irregular Warfare, Political Philosophy, Sports Economics and Tennis. Most days, he went to bed at midnight and woke up before 6 a.m.
11. Cornerback Maurice Canady, Virginia (No. 209): At the NFL scouting combine, Canady, whose cousin is a police officer in Prince George's County, wore cleats honoring slain Prince William County (Va.) police officer Ashley Guindon. One of the cleats was to be given to her family, the other put up for auction, with proceeds going to a memorial fund.