strong>Alex Magee was projected by many pundits as a potential second round pick, so he waited around in his Mississippi home on Saturday evening to see if he would get called upon...

"It was overwhelming. Everybody's sitting there, anxious for the draft, wondering where they're going to go, wondering where their new hometown is going to be, their new team. You can just kind of imagine the type of burden that was on my shoulders leading up to the draft."

...then, the second round ended with no phone call....

"Saturday night? Man, I didn't sleep too much Friday night so you could imagine what Saturday was for me. I think I probably got maybe three hours of sleep, maybe two. It wasn't a good one."

...fast forward to early Sunday morning, and he gets a call from the Kansas City Chiefs - they make him the 67th pick in the draft and their 2nd selection...

"I'mgoing to go in there and be ready to compete to play right away. We've got a fairly young defensive line. Glenn Dorsey was a top pick last year and he's anchoring the middle of the line and we got Tyson Jackson from LSU and he was the third pick overall. I actually trained with him for three and a half months down in Tampa. We trained together for the combine, so we're already pretty good buddies."

...naturally, his familiy and friends went crazy, including a large contigent here in the west 'burbs of Chicago - especially in Oswego....

"I've got a lot of people rooting and pulling for me and excited for me, a lot of people keeping me in their prayers during this whole situation. I have a lot of people looking out for me honestly. It was really good overall. It was real nice to see that there are a lot of poeple out there looking out for me and caring about me."

...so what's next? ...

"They start mini-camp on May 7. It's been a big weight lifted off my shoulders and now I've got time to relax in a sense but prepare and get my mind right before I go to Kansas City and just make sure I'm all good to go. I don't have to worry about anything. I know where I'm going to be at, I know where my hometown is at, so it's really been a burden lifted off my shoulders."

<Now - for some interesting stuff. It had been reported that Alex was a late addition, or a late arrival, to the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama in January. Magee missed the first day and wasn't on the roster - only to show up and then really make a name for himself...

"I guess I have some clearing up to do. I was invited. I guess my agent didn't know how my pads were going to get down there. The guys under my agency last year didn't go to the Senior Bowl and my agent was confused on how to get my pads down there. So my pads weren't down there so they assumed that I wasn't coming, so I wasn't on the roster.

"Then the day before we got on top of things and we ended up getting a flight booked around 11:30 that night. So I missed the very first practice but I was able to make the second one on the second day and I went down there and I kind of opened up some eyes. It all started off kind of rough but it ended up pretty good."

...the NFL Combine was his next stop in February, and he gives us an insight into what it was like...

"I don't know if too many people know what the combine situation (is). You don't get no sleep and you're up at six o'clock in the morning all those days that you're down there and you're basically on the go all the time. I think I sat in the hospital for six hours and sat in an MRI machine for five and a half hours with a 10 minute break. It's just a lot of other stuff that wears on you before you even go out there and test."

...and one of the last hurdles to clear prior the draft is a player's "pro day," which often takes place on campus...

"For my pro day, I basically had the whole to day to kind of chill and then go for my tests. And the day before that I think I spent most of my time in the training room getting stretched out and going to the pool and just relaxing instead of taking psychological tests. It's a lot different."

Purdue defensive line coach Terrell Williams also clarified some things - many mock drafts, or Senior Bowl/pro-day analysis - had Magee's "stock rising" after these off season events. But Williams said those people were misinformed...

"I don't think he really shot up the charts. He was rated as a second to third round draft pick going into last season. I think in outsider's minds he shot up the charts, but really, he was rated exactly where he went. Everyone kind of knew what he was and what we had. I think that people need to understand that playing on the defensive line doesn't always mean that you're going to carry 30 sacks and 20 tackles for loss."

"There are a lot of guys that have that kind of production that aren't getting drafted. To me, a great defensive lineman doesn't necessarily have to go out and have 10 tackles in the football game. As long as he can change the game and make other guys around him better then that's a great game. But again, a lot of times people look at statistics and judge kids and that's not always the case. Pro personnel guys don't necessarily look at statistics. If you just based things on statistics then you'd probably have 30 more guys go higher than Alex."

...Alex also talked about how he has jumped around the d-line for eight years - at both Oswego and Purdue...

"I've been doing it since high school to tell you the truth. My freshman year (at Oswego) I started off playing defensive end and I got moved inside. Then my sophomore year I played defensive end and my junior year I played defensive tackle and then my senior year I did both. So I've been doing it since I was young."

"For me to do it in college, maybe sometimes it was a little frustrating, but it helped me out. It made me more marketable and it just showed a lot of people I'm capable of doing other things than just one. I think I adjusted to it pretty well and I think that it made me marketable and showed my versatility and helped me out."

...and on a final note - Williams said the Boilermakers knew from the beginning that Alex would one day play on Sundays...
"Absolutely. There was no question in our minds that he was a pro football player. It was just a matter of time before he got drafted. We knew that. Usually you can tell pretty young if they're going to have pro potential. There was no question that Alex Magee had pro potential."