Florida edge rusher Jachai Polite complained that teams were “bashing” him during interviews at the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis by bringing up things he did wrong during his college career and his poor performances in those sessions was matched by one on the field.
Polite ran the 40-yard dash in 4.8 seconds in Indy and said he hurt his hamstring. Polite wasn’t able to improve on that time during a Pro Day workout on Wednesday, but he did try to do some damage control on the interview front.
Polite said he got rattled because he wasn’t “ready mentally.”
“It’s been pretty tough, but it’s a major learning experience for me, something I’ve never been through in my life,” Polite said, via ESPN.com. “I just keep learning every day. Nobody in my family has been through anything like this, so I had nobody to help me, really, other than my agent. But I never knew how serious and how mentally tough you had to be for this moment. ... At the end of the day they are trying to pay you to play for their team, so I get why they did everything they did. It wasn’t really that bad, I just took it the wrong way and was frustrated and stuff.”
Polite was very productive for the Gators and his agent said he’s set up 30 interviews that will give him a chance to put forth a better verbal performance than he managed in his first meetings with teams.
