Browns’ approach different

Prospect gets surprise in interview with team

Are you a cat or a dog?

If you could be any kind of animal, what would it be?

If you were going to murder someone, would you use a gun or a knife?

NFL teams go to sometimes weird lengths to get a snapshot into the mind of draft prospects, posing questions designed to elicit certain answers or test their quick wits.

According to one of this year’s top offensive line prospects, at least one team is trying a different approach at this year’s NFL combine.

Indiana guard Dan Feeney said the analytics-driven Cleveland Browns had him play what was essentially a memory game with playing cards during his combine interview.

“It was pretty cool,” Feeney said last week. “It was just kind of a memory thing. It was just flipping them over and seeing what cards were what.”

Feeney said the Browns personnel he met with laid nine cards on a table and asked him to recall them once they were turned over. He said he “messed up on a couple of them” but fared well overall.

The test, one assistant coach told of the game said, might give insight into a prospect’s cognitive reasoning and recall, important traits for an offensive lineman.

Feeney said he enjoyed it and it was a nice change-up from the film and board work that other teams put him through.

“It was just something different,” Feeney said. “You expect to kind of go in there and talk about your offense or learn their offense, and then here’s a guy with a deck of cards. I’m like, ‘ Hey man, are we playing blackjack or something right here?’ So it’s definitely something different. It’s cool, though.”