If former Notre Dame and Penn High School center Braxston Cave is searching for a parallel in terms of his NFL future, he doesn't have to search far.
The path traveled by another former Irish center would be a nice one to follow.
In the five years since John Sullivan was drafted in the sixth round of the NFL Draft by Minnesota, the former Notre Dame center has emerged as a leader on the Vikings offensive line, earned a five-year contract extension and been named an alternate to the Pro Bowl.
"I think (Cave is) at least on par if not even a better prospect coming out than John Sullivan was," said draft analyst Scott Wright of DraftCountdown.com, "and Sullivan's had a pretty good career for the Vikings."
Cave is one of eight former ND players invited to the Feb. 20-26 NFL Combine in Indianapolis. His time in Indy could help him improve his stock at a position that, relatively speaking, isn't a priority among NFL general managers.
Wright said that in the period from 2006-11, an average of seven centers were drafted each year, and not a lot of those were in the top three rounds. So Wright's belief that Cave will likely go in the later rounds is almost all about the realities of the NFL Draft.
"It's a pretty good thing just to be drafted as a center," said Wright, who believes the fifth round would be a best-case scenario for Cave with the sixth or seventh rounds possible scenarios. "He's going to be one of those classic blue-collar, overachiever types where physically he may not be the ideal in every regard, but he's got pretty good strength, he's going to work hard, he's intelligent and, at the center position -- kind of like with quarterback -- a lot of times it's better to have those intangibles than those sheer physical tools."
Strength would figure to be one of the 6-foot-3, 304-pound Cave's strengths, and it's quite possible he could gain a lot of attention in the bench press testing at the Combine. That, however, isn't necessarily something that will vault Cave up draft boards.
"If you look back over the years, the guys who have set the records for bench press reps haven't necessarily turned into great players, they haven't necessarily been drafted really early," Wright said. "And the reason is it's because they have a deficiency that kind of allows them to put up those bench press reps, which is short arms.
"And that's kind of frowned on in the league, especially with offensive linemen. You need to be able to keep the separation between yourself and the defensive linemen, so we'll see what he measures in at, and I'm sure he'll do pretty well on the bench press reps, but even if he puts up a ridiculous number there, I don't know that that's going to push him up draft boards multiple rounds or anything like that."
One part of the Combine where Wright believes Cave could boost his stock is in the Wonderlic Test, which measures cognitive ability.
"They always say for the Wonderlic scores, the closer you are to the ball, the higher you want those scores to be," Wright said, "and I think Cave's going to be a guy who's going to test out pretty well in that regard."
Another thing that could help would be the ability to slide to his left or right to play guard. Alabama center Barrett Jones, Wright's top-rated center this year, also played guard and tackle for the Crimson Tide. If Cave, who ranks as Wright's No. 5 center, can show that versatility, it could further open teams' eyes.
"If he shows teams that he can play guard as well as center," Wright said, "that would definitely help his cause."
Coming Thursday: A look at ND's other offensive players invited to the NFL Combine.
Staff writer Bob Wieneke:
bwieneke@sbtinfo.com
574-235-6428
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