If fans and pundits think the annual NFL scouting combine has become a little excessive, they should see it from the prospects’ perspective.

Buffalo Bills linebacker Preston Brown, fresh off a 109- tackle rookie season, relived his combine experience from a year ago to TSN.ca. The former third-round pick detailed the preparation prospects must go through for the NFL’s premier scouting event of the off-season.

“They really train you for everything at the combine. From the Wonderlic to the interviews; everything,” Brown said. “How you dress, you have to go in there and dress a certain way. You try to impress the whole time that you’re there because everybody’s watching you as soon as you step in there.”

The combine’s big draws for fans are the on-field tests and events, but Brown said a lot more goes into the now six-day event that doesn’t make tv.

“It’s 50-50 because you have to be able to kill in the classroom. If you can’t go and not impress on the board and you run a fast 40, it’s going to weigh you down. You have to impress in both of them (on and off the field).”

The combine consists of seven gauged events - including the 40-yard dash and bench press, a number of positional drills, off field interviews with teams, and the wonderlic test.

And while they’re all important to excel on, Brown said the marquee events are that for a reason.

“The 40 has been the best measuring tool for football players. You have to perform in that, you can’t be below average.”

“That’s the one you do every day (in training). You practice on your starts, your 10s, your 20 yards, to make sure you get faster.”

The 40-yard dash is a made for tv event, and is the driving force of the wall-to-wall coverage the combine now receives. But Brown said the added attention, the media circus that the combine has become, can actually become an advantage for prospects these days.

“Once guys in the media start to hype you up, then teams start thinking you’re going to go higher than you’re expected, you might end up going higher. You have to get the media on your side so if you go out and perform, it’s not going to hurt you.”

Having been through it all just last year, it’s natural the 11 Louisville Cardinals participating in the combine this year have come to Brown for advice on what to expect.

“Yeah they ask (for advice) mostly about the interview part. They can’t ask how to run fast, you just have to go out and do your best.”

“You just have to be yourself in the interviews and try to impress them.”

And while he’s comfortable helping out now, Brown wasn’t in as friendly a mood when he was going through the paces last year.

“I was too competitive (laughs). I was really just there to get myself ready, I didn’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Everybody in front of me, I just wanted to do better.”

With the combine comes mock drafts, lots of them. Mock drafts have become a cottage industry with more than 100 amateur mocks published online for every one by a major media outlet.

As much as fans crave mocks leading up to the draft, to hear Brown tell it they’re just as addictive to the prospects.

“Every day I was on the mock drafts,” Brown recalled. “I would google my name so I could see every new mock draft. It was so hard not to go and look, see what people were saying. You could be anywhere from free agent to second round, that was the toughest part.”

“You google all the websites, you look at every website trying to find yourself at the highest one and then you kind of want to keep looking at that one.”

Brown did have a cautionary tale however.

“None of them had me going to the Bills.”

With reports and rumours circulating all the time for prospects to read between their pre-draft auditions, it’s a stressful time for prospects. It all cumulates with Draft day however, when more than 200 prospects’ dreams come true, but it’s not necessarily the sigh of relief it’s made out to be.

“It’s still hectic because you’re like fourth-string, trying to work your way up and earn the trust of the guys.”