Each team at the Combine gets to schedule 60 college players for formal interviews this week.
The Bills, like most, want to hear exactly what Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o was thinking.
Bills assistant general manager Doug Whaley told Tim Graham of the Buffalo News that Te’o would be one of their 60 interviews, and that the drama about his fake dead girlfriend will probably come up during the course of the conversation.
“Everybody’s going to ask him about that drama, but it’s just going to be a piece of the puzzle,” Whaley said. “We’ll treat it independently, just like we’ll treat the other 59 guys who might have issues or might not have issues.
“This is one of the things we’re here for, to fact-find about all that stuff. . . . We’ll try to get as much information as possible out of it.”
The Bills certainly have a need for help at linebacker, after releasing leading tackler Nick Barnett. But while the eighth overall pick won’t be the neighborhood Te’o hears his name called, the Bills will likely have to think about it beginning with the 41st overall pick.
While the whole fake dead girlfriend story is salacious (also lewd, lascivious and outrageous), the greater concern to NFL teams is the way he played in the BCS title game.
Whether the off-field drama caused him to play like just a guy, or whether he’s just a guy is something teams will try to determine through their research this week and beyond.