Chris Warner’s Draft Prospect Interviews

Patriots Daily Reprise

We’re busy getting organized for our final few days of draft coverage, but we didn’t want to let the next week pass without reflecting on kind of a big accomplishment for PD, and most particularly for our colleague Chris Warner.

For the first time since we first started blogging the Pats five years ago, Chris punctured PD’s “fourth wall” – the barrier that exists between us, a fan blog, and the athletes we have always observed from a distance.

We’re talking, of course, about the series of draft prospect interviews that Chris has conducted on behalf of PD this spring. Chris’s ingenuity in contacting agents, sports information directors and ultimately the prospects themselves – and engaging them in conversations that were both amusing and insightful – has brought an originality and depth to our annual draft coverage that we couldn’t have conceived of previously.

We’re anxiously awaiting the draft, if for no other reason than to root on the kids that Chris has introduced us to. From possible first rounder Connor Barwin to the little known but highly entertaining (and industrious, and endearing) Dudley Guice, they’ve all made an impression on us.

As has our colleague Mr. Warner, who we couldn’t appreciate more. So now, once again, here are Chris’s prospect interviews for the 2009 draft.

Defensive lineman Connor Barwin, Cincinnati

Defensive lineman Paul Kruger, Utah

Defensive lineman Phillip Hunt, Houston

Defensive lineman Khalif Mitchell, East Carolina

Defensive lineman Lonnie Harvey, Morgan State

Defensive back Bradley Fletcher, Iowa

Defensive back Don Carey, Norfolk State

Linebacker Jasper Brinkley, East Carolina

Offensive lineman Gerald Cadogan, Penn State

Offensive lineman Roger Allen, Missouri Western

Wide receiver Sammie Stroughter, Oregon State