Senior Bowl Week Features College's Premier Talent for All-Star Game’s 59th Annual Edition

Photo – LB Keith Rivers - Southern Cal
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Every January the best college senor players are invited to Mobile, Alabama for the annual Senior Bowl All-star game and week. The Senior Bowl’s 59th annual edition this year will once again feature many blue chip prospects for the NFL Draft. Senior Bowl President and Director Steve Hale and media director Vic Knight have done another excellent job in organizing the weeks' events which will be attended by over 800 NFL coaches, personnel directors and pro scouts. With over 100 pro prospects in attendance, this group of players will constitute most of the top 150 selections in the NFL Draft 2008. It has been a pleasure working again with the Senior Bowl staff for this event.

Football’s premier pre-draft event, the week-long practices leading up to the 59th annual Under Armour Senior Bowl game this Saturday will once again play a vital role in determining much of what happens in this year’s NFL Draft, annually making Senior Bowl Week one of the most important weeks in all of football each year.

Fans will also be able to watch all the action when college football’s best take their next step to becoming tomorrow’s NFL greats this week, as the NFL Network which will offer over 21 hours of exclusive HD Senior Bowl coverage, including live coverage of all of its practice sessions, nightly primetime wrap-up shows and the game.

For the past 58 years, the Senior Bowl has an unequaled history of attracting the nation's top collegiate players and future NFL stars since the inaugural contest in 1950, as players such as NFL legends Joe Namath, Walter Payton, Brett Favre, "Mean" Joe Greene, Dan Marino, Steve Largent and Ray Nitschke all played in the contest.

Since its inception in 1950, the Senior Bowl has also held the distinction as the nation's most unique football game, as it is the only contest in the nation which features college football’s top senior NFL draft prospects being coached by the entire staffs of two NFL teams.

The quality of talent that annually appears in the contest more than speaks for itself. A record 578 former Senior Bowl players were on the active rosters of the 32 NFL teams during the 2007 season, a list which includes many of the biggest stars in the game today as 25 of those players were named to the rosters for this year's NFL Pro Bowl game.

Included in that group were the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year in Bob Sanders of the Colts, and an impressive collection of the NFL’s 2007 statistical champions including its leading rusher in LaDainian Tomlinson of the Chargers, its leading pass receiver in Reggie Wayne of the Colts, its leading tackler in Patrick Willis of the 49ers, its leading scorer in rookie Mason Crosby of the Packers, and the Eagles’ Brian Westbrook, who led the NFL in total yards from scrimmage.

Twelve Senior Bowl players were also chosen in the first-round of the 2007 NFL Draft and 90 players were drafted overall, including a top-five overall selection for the seventh straight year in offensive lineman Levi Brown of the Cardinals and Willis, the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year, making last year’s roster one of the most talented in the game’s history.