Part of my job as the play-by-play announcer for the Arizona Cardinals -- and a college football play-by-play man for ESPN -- is to have a good pulse on potential NFL prospects. With access to college coaches and NFL scouts, I usually have a pretty good feel for the NFL draft gossip.
I have to admit that I knew very little about current Cardinals safety Deone Bucannon coming out of Washington State. The Cougars were not a very good program at the time, so they weren't often on television. Plus, Bucannon wasn't highly recruited coming from Fairfield, California, so he was a late bloomer in terms of national attention.