Before he departed for what figures to be the biggest week of his football career to this point, Tuskegee defensive back Drayton Florence phoned up former teammate Roosevelt Williams to pick his brain about what he might expect from the Senior Bowl game.

	Lamar Gordon went from North Dakota St. to the St. Louis Rams thanks to a good week at the Senior Bowl.

Williams played in the annual college all-star contest last year, and proving to the league scouts that he could compete with stars from more high-profile schools helped earn him a spot in the third round of the 2002 draft, the first player from Tuskegee ever chosen in the lottery.

A relative unknown, like several other players who traveled to Mobile, Ala., for the game, Florence is hoping to take the same road to NFL riches that his close friend traversed a year ago.

"Basically, what Roosevelt told me is to do something that makes them look at you, something that gets (the scouts') attention," said Florence, who had five interceptions, including two returned for touchdowns, in 2002. "Make a big hit. Break on the ball. Hustle in everything you do. Force them to look a little bit closer, you know, during the practices. I mean, this is a big week for me, and I wanted to know what I was getting into."

It is a big week, too, for most NFL teams. The unlikely city of Mobile, for one week, becomes the center of the NFL universe, as personnel directors, scouts and coaches converge on the town for the Senior Bowl game. Started in 1950, and moved to Mobile after one contest in Jacksonville, the game is a showcase for senior talent.

Some of the meat on the hoof, such as Southern California quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer, is well known. Other players, like Florence or Bethune-Cookman defensive back Rashean Mathis, who posted 14 interceptions (five returned for touchdowns) in 13 games this season, are virtually anonymous to the common fan.

Familiar to the scouts, though, they still must use the Senior Bowl practices as both a proving ground and a measuring stick.

And make no mistake about it, the practices are far more significant than the game this weekend, and most players understand that. The majority of scouts and general managers, in fact, will have departed Mobile before the contest and will have made judgments based on the workouts that led up to it.

That is why, despite the combine workouts in February and the individual auditions held on campus by most prospects, the Senior Bowl practices are so critical to a player's draft status.

There are other postseason all-star games but the Senior Bowl annually nets the top players. And it puts the two squads, the North and South, under the direction of NFL coaches. The Detroit Lions (South) staff and the Houston Texans coaches (North), for instance, will coach the two teams this year.

	“	This is as close as you're ever going to get at a sneak peek of how a player will be when he shows up for your first mini-camp. It's just invaluable. ”
		— Redskins personnel director Vinny Cerrato

The result: Players participate in NFL-style practices, get instructions from NFL coaches, are assessed in an NFL-type environment. And given what the combine has become, with so many of the marquee prospects refusing to do all the on-field drills, the Senior Bowl has emerged as the best forum from which to accurately apprise a player's ability.

"It's like you've picked up a player and suddenly deposited in the middle of an NFL practice," said Carolina Panthers personnel director Jack Bushofsky. "The drills, the plays, the schemes . . . it's all NFL stuff. So you get a pretty good chance to project where a player fits. Since the city is small, and they plan a lot of activities to bring you together with the kids, there's a chance to eyeball them off the field, too."

Even if a player participates in every combine drill, they are still drills, and there is no live contact during the week in Indianapolis. The Senior Bowl is a case study in getting ready for a game, how players react and respond, who can mentally assimilate a game plan in two or three days.

"This is as close as you're ever going to get," said Washington Redskins personnel director Vinny Cerrato, "at a sneak peek of how a player will be when he shows up for your first mini-camp. It's just invaluable."

It is life in the NFL pressure cooker, five or six months before the players will ever get on the field for a training camp practice, and NFL bird-dogs view the Senior Bowl as an essential part of the evaluation process. Walk around a Senior Bowl practice and the crowds that line the practice fields are comprised of a "who's who" of league personages.

The week has also become the NFL's greatest outdoor interview session, as unemployed assistants regularly lobby head coaches for jobs, and pass out résumés on the sideline. The real importance, though, is the players and that is a focus of the personnel directors. The more authentic and full-speed the practices, they feel, the better handle they will glean on a player's skills.

And, hopefully, the fewer mistakes in judgment at draft time.

"Look, a lot of the (stuff) we do in evaluating players is extraneous," said one AFC personnel chief. "It's redundant, really, sometimes. But the Senior Bowl, well, it's the real deal. Kids can make themselves a lot of money this week. And we get a better feel for every one of these players."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com. For more information on the 2003 Senior Bowl, go to the official site.