IJ just made some money

You can get all the yarn you've ever dreamed of

No one has ever questioned Ian Johnson's heart or character, but after IJ's stellar sophomore campaign, his NFL draft stock appeared to be dropping precipitously. Ian suffered some freak injuries throughout his career and had to deal with a retooled offense that no longer gave him the ball as much as he was accustomed...and then there were the questions about his speed. All in all, I don't think things were looking great for IJ, draftwise. But the all-time WAC rushing TD leader has been turning heads at the combine this weekend and quieting some naysayers that thought his sophomore season was a fluke. Ian just finished running his 40-yard dash in Indianapolis and officially has run the second fastest time of the day...just 1/100th of a second behind Virginia's Cedric Peerman at 4.46 seconds. Ian also put up impressive numbers on the bench press, finishing with 26 reps of 225 lbs. Those finishing with more reps than Ian among the running backs were mainly fullbacks. Ian also finished 4th and 5th amongst running backs in the 20-yard and 60-yard shuttle runs, respectively.

With Ian's character speaking for itself, and now being backed up by solid combine numbers and experience on special teams—I think that Ian just made himself (and Chrissy) some cash.

Nice job, Ian.

By the way, Jeremy Childs ran a 4.57 in the 40—not amazing...but not terrible. Hey, nobody ever said JC was a burner, right?

Combine top performers [NFL.com]

Childs' Combine invite was apparently lost in the mail

*Yoink

So about that article a couple of days ago...nevermind. It turns out that Jeremy Childs will be attending the NFL Combine in Indy next month, but nobody knew about it. The Statesman is reporting this morning that Childs is working out at Athletes' Performance in L.A. and prepping for the combine, one of only about 40 receivers on the list. KBCI reported a week or so ago that Childs had not been on the list of attendees and that Ian Johnson would be the lone Bronco participant. Furthermore, ESPN's Graham Watson corroborated the story saying that Childs' name was conspicuously absent among the list of non-BCS participants. Well, they were both wrong or simply jumped the gun, leaving me holding the bag as it were. J Bates, I curse your name.

Scouts will be particularly interested in Childs' 40 time which has been clocked previously as "fast enough"...but will need to increased to "faster than Brian Dawkins" by the time the Combine rolls around.

Childs gets his invite [Statesman]

Childs a no-go for the combine

Be the ball, Jeremy.

Jeremy Childs winding road to the NFL may have just gotten a wee bit more complicated. Whereas last years early departures, Orlando Scandrick and Ryan Clady, had a chance to show their wares at the meat market known as the NFL combine...Childs will have to hope that he draws a big crowd on Pro Day. The official invite list, out today, shows only one Bronco making the trip to Indianapolis, and that Bronco is Ian Johnson. Oddly enough, Johnson may have more to prove to the scouts than Childs...at least physically. The combine runs between February 18th and the 24th.

Story [KBCI]