The Hard Life of an N.F.L. Long Shot

Christaan Felber for The New York Times

Pat Schiller

Click the links in this article to launch multimedia extras including game highlights, video interviews and additional photographs.

Christaan Felber for The New York Times

Pat Schiller, center, stretches during a workout at the Atlanta Falcons' practice field in Flowery Branch, Ga.

Last April 28, a splendid spring Saturday that fairly begged you to be outdoors, I spent all afternoon in front of my living-room TV, anxiously watching the last day of the annual N.F.L. draft, live from Radio City Music Hall. As big a football fan as I am, I had never seen any part of a draft, to say nothing of its final four rounds, which are a roughly seven-hour marathon that lasts until sundown. And yet, on that day, I sat riveted.

I had in front of me what's known as a Draft Scout Player Profile: a starkly efficient, computerized summation of every draftable player's past prowess and future prospects. I, however, was interested in only one, my nephew, my younger sister's son. His specs were, of course, familiar to me. But somehow the officious, bare-bones alignment on my computer screen — in categories befitting a prize steer at auction — rendered him a complete stranger. And a rather impressive one at that.

Name: Pat Schiller. Number: 53. Position: Outside linebacker. Height: 6-foot-1. Weight: 234. College: Northern Illinois. Under "Pro Day Results" — his audition, essentially, before several N.F.L. scouts at the DeKalb campus of Northern Illinois University earlier in March — were 22 bench presses of 225 pounds, a 35-inch vertical leap and, for a linebacker, a head-turning 4.65 seconds in the 40-yard dash. Under his "Draft Scout Snapshot" was a link to game-highlight footage: a rapid-fire sequence of heat-seeking-missile launches into ball carriers; the all-out, "high-motor" mode of play that garnered No. 53 a team-leading 115 tackles in his senior year, along with second-team All Mid-American Conference and Northern Illinois's Linebacker of the Year honors. As for Pat's "Projected Round," there was, after the word "stock," a bright red, upward-pointing arrow, followed by the words "shot late."

Some 800 miles west, meanwhile, in a two-story modern colonial on a neatly etched cul-de-sac in the western Chicago suburb Geneva, Pat lay on the living-room carpet, holding his golden retriever, Champ. Around the TV with him was his immediate family: his father, also named Pat, a longtime excavation contractor as well as an accomplished pianist and songwriter in the Billy Joel mode, with a couple CDs to his credit and a No. 6 single on a 2004 adult-contemporary-music radio chart; Pat's mother, my younger sister, Cathy, a doctor's medical assistant; my niece, Stephanie, a classically trained vocalist who now works in the admissions office at Northern Illinois University, her alma mater as well; and her fiancé, Michael. My nephew, my sister had told me, wanted to keep things low-key, wanted to avoid the roomful of slack faces and well-meaning condolences should things not go as hoped.

He was, in a sense, already chosen. Of the 80,000 or so who play college football every year, no more than 1,500 are even scouted by pro teams. On average about 300 of those players will be invited to show their stuff at the weeklong N.F.L. scouting combine held every February at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Hundreds more will perform at regional combines or at their college team's pro days. Among the heads Pat turned was that of Ran Carthon, son of the New York Giants fullback Maurice Carthon. Ran Carthon was also a former N.F.L. running back before becoming a scout for the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons called Pat four times in the previous week alone, the final call coming that Saturday morning.

"Stay by your phone for Rounds 6 and 7," he was told.

What followed was a slow-motion combo to the gut. The Falcons' sixth-round pick went to Charles Mitchell, a safety out of Mississippi State. In Round 7, they took Travian Robertson, a defensive tackle from the University of South Carolina. Four picks later, the Indianapolis Colts took as the draft's last selection Chandler Harnish, the quarterback at Northern Illinois and my nephew's close friend and college housemate.

"The room went kind of quiet," Pat told me. "There was like this skipped heartbeat. And then the waiting started all over again."

Charles Siebert is a contributing writer and the author, most recently, of "Rough Beasts: The Zanesville Massacre, One Year Later."

Editor: Ilena Silverman

Videos by Kassie Bracken. College highlight reel via YouTube. Additional video footage: The Schiller Family. College photos: Jerry Burnes/Northern Star. Family photos: The Schiller Family. Additional photographs: AP; Getty.

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