Confident CB Teez Tabor trying to move past drug tests, fight at Florida to NFL teams
INDIANAPOLIS — Some NFL draft prospects arrive at the scouting combine knowing the medical evaluation could be their biggest hurdle. Others come feeling the need to test well to impress scouts. But a third, very important group is the players who need to answer questions about their pasts.
Florida CB Jalen “Teez” Tabor most certainly fits into that last group. A day after Alabama pass rusher Tim Williams admitted to failing “a few” drug tests in school, Tabor also came clean about his multiple failed tests at Florida.
A two-time all-SEC corner, Tabor has put out a lot of good tape for NFL scouts to marvel at as one of the better cover men in the country the past two seasons. He’s not a player without flaws, but there also is a lot to like about his size, athleticism, playmaking ability and confidence going against top competition. Some scouts believe he actually outplayed Vernon Hargreaves III, who was the 11th pick in the draft a year ago to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, when they lined up together in 2015.
(Oh, and that confidence … in one breath, Tabor calls himself a “humble kid,” and in the next he’s proclaiming himself “the best player in this draft” and that “it’s hard not to like a player like me.”)
So for Tabor, he has spent much of this week talking to teams less about football and more about his off-field transgressions. He admitted to failing a drug test as an early enrollee for the Gators prior to his freshman year. Tabor owned up to skipping — or missing — a drug test as a sophomore, which led to a suspension. And he discussed with them a fight with a teammate that also caused him to miss time this past season as a junior before he applied early to the NFL.
“That’s the only type of questions I get in the interviews,” Tabor said Sunday. “I just tell them that you have to go through growing pains in life. I am not saying I am glad I made those mistakes. But they definitely made me the man I am today. I learned valuable life lessons from those mistakes, so I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Teams have been hard on Tabor in interviews this week. They’ve known about Tabor’s missteps under two different coaching staffs at UF and have far more questions about his accountability than they do about his talent, even if there are concerns about whether Tabor is physical or tough enough, some tackling issues and if he can play press coverage in heavy doses. But it speaks to his talent that he stood out as one of the best Gators DB prospects over the past two seasons, a group that included Hargreaves, first-round safety Keanu Neal and undrafted Brian Poole of the Atlanta Falcons, plus possible first-round CB Quincy Wilson and early-round S Marcus Maye from this class.
Still, the character concerns NFL teams have for Tabor are what’s most pressing in this setting. Tabor wears a band around his wrist that says “CHOICES,” and it’s a word that haunted him previously but one, he says, that he’s now mindful of every day.
“It just reminds me we all have the freedom of choice but we don’t have the freedom of consequences,” Tabor said. “I plan to take it with me until the day I die.”
Depending on what answers Tabor gives this week, his future could be bright. Or it could be like his college career — occasionally brilliant but plagued by setbacks within his control.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
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