The preeminent all-star game, the Reese’s Senior Bowl, offered over 100 college players the chance to strut their stuff in front of cadres of NFL scouts, personnel decision makers, and draftniks. I was one of those draftniks, as for the seventh year in a row I made the trip to Mobile to watch every practice.

Some guys seized the opportunity and raised their draft profiles with strong performances. Others might have cost themselves some initial salary by underwhelming on the practice fields.

Here are five guys who earned themselves some money and five who cost themselves chances at more money.

Earners:

Aaron Donald, DT, Pittsburgh--he was consistently the most disruptive interior line presence on either roster. While he’s short at just over six feet tall and under 290 pounds, he showed great quickness and more than enough strength to handle taking on opposing guards. His bevy of polished pass rush moves often drew wows from the sideline observers.

Scouts came to Mobile wanting to see him handle playing against top-caliber linemen and show he had more than a great first step. Mission accomplished. His size will bother teams come draft time, but in a very weak DT draft class, he probably elevated himself into late first-round consideration.

Jon Halapio, G, Florida--the ponytailed strongman had a rough senior season at Florida. He played through a partially torn pectoral muscle, and it clearly inhibited his play. Halapio looked fully healed--and then some--from the very first rep of South practice, where he jolted Arizona State’s Will Sutton with a jab and proceeded to easily topple him over.

That was the first of many pancakes on the week for Halapio. His ability to fire out his arms with core power while sitting in his stance is exactly what teams look for in guards. He can uncoil power from his shoulders and base nicely, at one point lifting 348-pound Dan McCullers off the ground. Now he has posited himself as this year’s potential Larry Warford. He’s not as agile as Detroit’s rookie phenom, but he’s close enough that some team is going to take Halapio in the 80-100 overall range.

Dee Ford, DE, Auburn--one of the highlights of every all-star game week is the pass rush pit drill in practices. It’s the ultimate individual matchup, and it generates the most buzz along the sidelines.

This year’s unquestioned champ of those contests was Dee Ford. His quickness to consistently get his inside shoulder under and through the outside shoulder of the offensive tackle is something that impressed scouts mightily. Ford also showed he could veer inside, setting up his moves and demonstrating a good understanding of how to use his hands and shoulders to get off blocks. I really liked that he never exposes his chest as a blocking target. Ford solidified himself as a second-round talent in Mobile.

Robert Herron, WR, Wyoming--teams looking for slot receivers really want to see a wideout that can get open off one step. That sounds overly ambitious but it’s very easy to spot which guys are doing it and which ones cannot. Robert Herron sure can.

Herron was dynamite off the line, able to explode into his routes. He can change direction on a dime and has excellent body control while at full gallop. His hands were inconsistent throughout the week, and that likely limits him to a 4^th round draft fate. If he can clean that up, he’s a faster & stronger version of Julian Edelman.

Weston Richburg, C, Colorado State--my unadulterated draft man crush this year is Weston Richburg. I even told him so after Tuesday’s practice, after he nearly broke off my wrist while shaking my hand.

In a strangely deep center class, Richburg proved he belongs at or very near the top with his Mobile week. His ability to quickly set up in pass protection and anchor in his stance is very impressive. He proved he could engage at the second level in team drills. But most impressive was something that I did not see from the other Senior Bowl centers, and that’s his ability to modify on the fly. He played Aaron Donald differently than he played RaShede Hageman or DaQuan Jones, who are all very different styles of defensive tackles. Those smarts are what makes him pretty “safe” as a 3^rd round pick. He’ll be in my top 50 players in the final rankings.

Bear Market:

Before I get to these players, it’s important to note that they all performed well at some points throughout the week; there was really no player who looked like he truly did not belong except one (Stephen Morris). But these players all failed to meet scouts’ expectations for what they could do or had some flaws exposed more glaringly.

Michael Sam, DE, Missouri--From the very first movement drills it was painfully obvious what Michael Sam is not. He is not an outside linebacker in any scheme, period. His lateral agility and comfort in space were shockingly bad.

As I noted during the week, his biggest issue is that he runs with an exaggerated forward lean. That’s great when you’re going forward but lousy when doing anything else. That’s not something that can be coached, unfortunately. He did show he could press the edge as a rusher, though others did it better. That’s really all he is, a fairly ordinary 4-3 LDE prospect. I’d be scared to take him with anything higher than a 6^th round pick.

Will Sutton, DT, Arizona State--One of the battles in my mind heading to Mobile was which undersized defensive tackle was better, Sutton or Aaron Donald. While Donald soared into the bull market, Sutton provided grist for both his advocates and critics.

It’s all about his first step. When he gets the initial advantage off the snap, he’s very effective at swimming, dipping, or spinning quickly into the backfield. He also showed he could close ground in a hurry. The flip side is that if he doesn’t beat the man in front of him right off the bat, he’s completely useless. Form what I watched, his losses outnumbered his wins during the week. Still, his wins are impressive enough that some team will consider a top 64 pick on him. His short arms and terrible weight gain over the past few weeks likely relegates him to an early 4^th round pick.

Derek Carr, QB, Fresno State--make no question about it, Derek Carr was the best quarterback all week. He’s the only QB in Mobile I would even consider in the first two rounds. So why does he wind up with the bear market crowd?

It’s simple: he could have, and probably should have, been better. While he did show the best accuracy, he missed several throws by not properly adjusting for the speed of his receiver. That’s a little nitpicky in a short week with foreign targets, but it never really got better throughout the week. In addition, we did see the back-foot throws and dropping of the arm angle for no good reason. These are things that scouts hoped would be cleaned up in intensive training, but it hasn’t happened yet. Still, he did throw some truly artful fades, and Carr showed more than enough mustard on the deep throws.

Heading into Senior Bowl week I strongly believed that a good showing could vault Carr definitively into the top 10. Instead, I believe he kept his stock in the late-first discussion. Anything higher should be considered a reach.

Jordan Matthews, WR, Vanderbilt--Matthews is another player who could have really helped himself with a strong week. Heading to Mobile he was the top receiving talent on either roster, an impressive blend of size, speed, and hands. Many felt he could make it into the first round.

If he gets his name called in the top 40 picks now, it’ll be a small miracle. Matthews had issues in going after the football all week. To generalize, his fight to size of dog ratio is poor. We all wanted to see him get physical and use his size to go get contested balls. Instead, he was often passive. Matthews also showed some struggles in getting off jams, which belies his size. He plays small, and that’s a problem for a big receiver. There is still more than enough to like with Matthews, notably his speed after the catch, to merit being a #2 receiver in the NFL. But teams don’t typically use high picks on that role.

Tajh Boyd, QB, Clemson--I’ve never been high on Boyd, so my expectations were pretty low. He met them.

Boyd is quite simply not a NFL-caliber quarterback. His footwork and mechanics are dreadful. In one series of reps this week, Boyd consistently took his drop steps on his heels. When you watch good quarterbacks, their heels never touch the ground. His accuracy is all over the place, at times pretty sharp but others resembling Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn from Major League. About the only saving grace for Boyd was that he was demonstrably better than Miami’s Stephen Morris, who was worse than all the quarterbacks at the Shrine Game a week earlier.

Stay tuned for a post-bowl mock draft!