Osweiler excels in pro day workout

With Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and more than 20 NFL scouts on hand, former Arizona State quarterback Brock Osweiler had an impressive showing in his pro day workout Friday inside the on-campus Dickey Dome.

Osweiler ran in the low 4.9s in the 40-yard dash and completed 66 of 75 throws with two drops and seven overthrows, five of which came on deep, downfield throws to former Sun Devil receiver Aaron Pflugrad, one of five players to catch for the quarterback on the day. Other ASU receivers who took part in the workout were Gerell Robinson, Mike Willie and T.J. Simpson.

"A lot of quarterbacks kind of play it safe," Osweiler said of the day's session, which overseen by his former ASU offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone. "They're not going to make a lot of those throws you might throw an incompletion on. We kind of looked at it the other way. We wanted to show everybody everything I had. We wanted to make all the difficult throws and that's what we did today. Coach (Noel) Mazzone did a tremendous job scripting my pro day, we worked on for weeks up on weeks and it all worked out today, it was good."

After suffering a mid-foot sprain in the fourth quarter of ASU's bowl loss in late December, Osweiler said he couldn't do much in the way of working out his legs for approximately two months and it was the reason he had a late pro day.

"As a competitor, it was very hard to sit back and wait but I think it was well worth it," Osweiler said.

"It was a great group of guys, we had a lot of fun, the wide receivers did a tremendous job of running really good routes, they were all fast today. It was a lot of fun."

Analysis were already reporting late Friday that reviews of Osweiler's performance were generally positive and he may have increased the odds he'll be taken by the third round, with NFL.com's Gil Brandt going as far as suggesting a late first round selection isn't out of the question.

"I spent a lot of time working on my feet, working on my motion, working on my stance these past 2-3 months and I think everybody recognized it today so that's a good feeling," Osweiler said.

"I know there were a few incompletion out there and obviously as a competitor you want to be 100 percent. That wasn't the case but I think I showed some great things out there and was very happy with the workout."

Next week, Osweiler will visit with Denver and Kansas City and he said he will subsequently meet with Buffalo and Miami. Mazzone said he'd like to see Osweiler go to a place like Denver, where he can learn for a couple years from a high profile veteran quarterback before taking over.

"I think Brock's upside is awesome," said Mazzone, who also told reporters he advised Osweiler to return to school for his senior season after a coaching change at the school. "Where he's come from just the beginning of the year to now he's taken such big strides. I'm really kind of upset. I said, what the heck, why wasn't I coaching him better a year ago. We've changed some little things in his motion and how he's carrying the ball, his footwork and stuff like that and I thought he had a solid day."

The only other player who ran a 40-yard dash on the day was former ASU linebacker Vontaze Burfict, who looked leaner than several weeks ago and was timed in the low 4.8s, which is significantly faster than his NFL Combine official time of 5.09 seconds.