Smalls has played a lot of good football for NIU, and he got better every year. Started as a true Freshman. Brown had the best season of all of our receivers last season. His potential is great. All he needs is a Quarterback. Both had good Pro Days:(Daily Chronicle newsletter)


Albert Smalls is only recently getting back into the shape that allows him to go hard in training for a potential NFL career.

The fifth-year senior Huskie finished his playing career in October, when after a conversation with then coach Rod Carey, the starting cornerback was shut down and underwent shoulder surgery.

"I’ve been playing since I was a freshman here. I feel like I gave this program a lot. We won a lot of games here. I started a lot of games, played a lot of games. I felt like I had a good future in football, so we had to make that decision with (coach) Carey and everything."


Only in the last month-plus has Smalls felt comfortable enough to give hard workouts a go, but since, little has slowed his preparation with his professional goals in mind.

"I just started dumbbell benching a couple weeks ago. I was trying to feel myself get strong. Once I started doing pushups for real after a shoulder injury, you know you’re starting to get that for real. You’re starting to progress everyday. Running started coming back easy for me."

Smalls posted the top vertical leap at 35 and 1/2 inches and the third best broad jump (10 feet, 1 inch) of any of Wednesday's 19 participants at NIU's Pro Day.

The 6-foot corner, who weighs in at 201 pounds, believes his height is a nice benefit to tout as he looks forward and was encouraged by what he heard from scouts Wednesday.

"I feel like I had a real solid day. All the scouts told me I had great field work. They told me I tested pretty good. I feel like I came out here and I had a real solid day."

Also feeling confident at the end of the day was D.J. Brown, who turned in a broad jump distance of 9 feet, 8 inches, which was about five inches more than many of his past leaps during training.

Brown, who hauled in two touchdown receptions in NIU's Mid-American Conference championship win over Buffalo, felt especially confident that his route-running abilities have improved.

"The big thing for me was, I played in the slot all year, so when I came here, I ran the outside routes ... I feel like when I did good a that, it was just to add to my resume."

Brown noted time spent speaking with scouts from the Lions, Broncos, Dolphins and Steelers.

"You put on the film and they all think these are your best plays, we want to see you in person. We want to see how big you are in person, we want to see how big you are in person, how you run routes in person."

Brown has several former Huskie receivers to turn to when looking for advice about the process and has their help going forward.

"I talked to Kenny (Golladay of the Detroit Lions), he said the hard part (is) over. He said just keep going .(Chad) Beebe (of the Minnesota Vikings) he said don’t really work abut your 40 times, just don’t get a big range. Just make sure your routes are crisp and I feel like I did that."