Local NFL agent: Te’o can salvage draft stock with deft damage control

Steve Caric says as many as 19-20 people could be in the room, 19-20 pairs of eyes, 19-20 skeptical souls with all sorts of questions to aim at Manti Te'o.

"They will attack you, scream at you, call you a liar, pound on the table, anything they can do to get the truth out of you, or what they believe the truth is," Caric said. "If there is the slightest thing in a prospect's past that doesn't seem right, they will be all over it. Trust is huge for them. They might go hard at him just to see how he reacts to it.

"Does he stay calm or crack under the pressure? If they can't count on him to be calm in an interview, how will he react during a game? At the end of the day, if you have a guy with a really long rap sheet who has been in trouble with the law versus a guy they think is being dishonest ... Put it this way - they're not taking the dishonest guy."

Caric is the Las Vegas-based NFL agent who believes the only way the fake girlfriend saga surrounding Te'o will harm the Notre Dame linebacker's draft status is that if those interviewing him at the upcoming scouting combine don't believe his side of things.

A month's worth of "General Hospital" doesn't have the dramatic twists and turns of the ghost that is Lennay Kekua, the fictitious woman Te'o says he fell in love with over the Internet before her, well, imaginary death.

Caric believes that before the hoax was made public, 15-16 teams would have used their 15-minute windows to sit and chat with Te'o at the combine, scheduled for Feb. 20 to 26 in Indianapolis.

Now, he thinks all 32 teams will include Te'o on their list of 60 prospects each is allowed to interview.

Of course they will.

Who wouldn't want to hear his version of things?

Break out the popcorn and soda.

Most teams will have at least their general manager, head coach and director of player personnel conduct combine interviews. Some add a position coach and director of scouting. Some add even more bodies.

Te'o is likely to test the all-time record for NFL types cramming into a room to ask questions, although I'm guessing Cowboys owner Jerry Jones will go solo and somehow turn the conversation into stories about his past girlfriends.

If a mock draft on NFL.com is any indication, the Kekua hoax hasn't severely damaged Te'o's status. All four experts predict Te'o will be a first-round selection, and one has him going as high as eighth to Buffalo.

(Enter the a-fake-girlfriend-always-will-be-hotter-than-any-woman-from-the-Great-Lakes joke here.)

"If he goes to the combine and doesn't come off as arrogant and handles all the questions well, his value shouldn't drop," Caric said. "I've always felt he was a two-down linebacker. He's a really good one, but in my opinion, two-down linebackers don't go in the first round.

"I think how he looked against Alabama in (the Bowl Championship Series title game) hurt him more than any story about a fake girlfriend. He looked slow. He didn't seem to have great instincts to find the ball and make a play. I really think how he runs the 40 at the combine might be more important to some teams than any story."

The good news for Te'o: He has more than a month to prepare for the process, for his representatives to pepper him with questions and scenarios sure to arise at the combine. He also will gain experience this week, when Te'o and his parents sit down opposite Katie Couric for the player's first televised interview since the story broke.

Caric's clients this draft include Stanford tight end Zach Ertz (three of four experts on NFL.com have him as a first-rounder) and Oregon linebacker Kiko Alonso, whose past includes being cited for drunken driving in 2010 and pleading guilty to criminal mischief in 2011.

Already, Caric has begun preparing them for what is to come next month.

"Sometimes, the interview process is all football IQ stuff," he said. "Sometimes, they just ask about school. But there will always be teams that no matter what is in someone's past, believe they can put the player in a controlled environment and have the mechanisms in place for the young man to have a successful career."

Whether that happens with Manti Te'o is unknown.

This isn't: "Above all else," Caric said, "he better not lie to them."

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on "Gridlock," ESPN 1100 and 98.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.