The snapping starts Thursday, and Joe Cardona is the only snapper at the 2015 NFL Scouting Combine. The only long snapper, anyway. There are 15 quarterbacks, 44 receivers, 40 cornerbacks.
One long snapper. Joe Cardona of Navy.
NFL teams want to know things he can show them, like what he weighs (240 pounds), how fast his snaps travel (41 mph), and the elapsed time it takes to reach the punter (0.7 seconds, tops).
More than any of that, though, they will want to ask him a question he can't answer. A question they will ask none of the other 320 players invited to the week-long combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. A question that will determine how he spends the next two years, and perhaps — if something goes terribly wrong — how he will die:
Will the Navy let you delay your service commitment to play in the NFL in 2015?
"I don't know," he will say.
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There are no easy roads to being a long snapper in the NFL.
Before he became the Colts' long snapper, Matt Overton was going to become a cop. The NFL was Plan A but Plan A wasn't happening, and he had a Plan B: Be like his father and uncle in San Leandro, Calif. Become a cop.
It was 2012. Overton already had been cut twice by the Seattle Seahawks. He played in the Arena Football League, but not the main one. The one called af2. He played for someone called the Florida Tuskers in something called the UFL. Then he went to Omaha of the UFL.
And was released.
"That was a huge blow to my career, and to my self-esteem really," Overton says. "I was cut because they had some guy who played tight end who could snap too. He's now the 49ers' long snapper, Kyle Nelson. So I lost my job to somebody legitimate, but NFL coaches and scouts are thinking, 'Why is this guy getting cut from the UFL?' It doesn't look good."
To then, nothing he tried had worked. Not attending regional combines held for kickers, punters and snappers. Not playing in the minor leagues. And not a trick-shot video of himself snapping a football into a shoebox-sized cubby in his garage, into an opening next to some shoes, and shouting: "Best long snapper in the nation. Sign me right now!"
By 2012, Overton's NFL dream had been reduced to one final combine — one of a handful that have popped up in recent years for specialists — and then he was going to enroll in the police academy.
At the combine run by former NFL special teams coach Gary Zauner in Arizona, Overton ran 40 yards in 4.7 seconds. He benched-pressed 24 reps at 225 pounds. He snapped for hours, and when Zauner needed a volunteer to help the punters, Overton made those snaps too.
"I did everything I was asked, plus more," Overton says. "I wanted these NFL coaches to know, 'Dude' — excuse my language — 'but I'm (expletive) ready. I'm as good as any of these guys out there. I have the skill, the mindset. I'm ready to rock and roll.' "
Among the special teams coaches in attendance: Brant Boyer of the Colts.
That summer the Colts brought in Overton to compete with Justin Snow, whose 192 consecutive games played was second in franchise history to Peyton Manning's 208. Overton won the job. The next season he was in the Pro Bowl.
When Overton returned to Zauner's camp last month to speak with campers, this is what he told them:
"It's all about confidence," Overton said. "You have to walk the walk, talk the talk. Talk about being the best of the best — to do this job, you have to have that confidence."
Cardona has that confidence. He was invited to the Senior Bowl and the NFL Scouting Combine because he is the best of the best, a four-year starter at Navy who has been long-snapping since eighth grade and was offered a scholarship to Navy simply for his ability to snap. He knows how good he is.
He does not know if he will get the chance to show it.
"Whatever the Navy decides they want to do with me," Cardona says, "is what they decide to do with me."
Cardona doesn't know when the decision will be reached by the Navy. He knows he graduates in May, after the NFL draft starts April 30 and concludes May 2. Cardona knows that unless the Navy decides before then, his draft stock would be almost nil.
Cardona also knows the story of Caleb Campbell, the Army senior — a safety — who was cleared to play in the NFL in 2008. Campbell was drafted in the seventh round by the Detroit Lions in April, signed a three-year contract in July, then was told the next day that the Army had reconsidered, that he must serve his commitment immediately.
"I don't know him," Cardona says. "But I know his story."
Campbell served two years, then played three games with the Lions in 2010. He bounced from camp to camp after that, including two weeks with the Colts in September 2011, before being released for good by Kansas City in 2012.
This could be Joe Cardona. Or not. He has the credentials, the velocity, the elapsed time to be one of the best long snappers in the NFL next season. Or he could be overseas.
"There is no downside," Cardona says of the choice between the NFL and active duty. "It's a very noble thing, to be a Navy officer. I look forward to whatever I do the next two years, whether it's in the NFL or leading sailors and marines."
This week Joe Cardona will take a step toward the brotherhood. Or not. There are no easy roads to being a long snapper in the NFL, not for any of the 32 players who have that job, but there is rarely a road as unclearly defined as this one.
Matt Overton is one of those 32, but for how long he doesn't know. He turns 30 in July. He'd like to play until he's 35, if not older.
"Vinatieri age," he says, a whimsical reference to 42-year-old Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri.
Whenever it ends, Overton might yet become a police officer. He's not sure about that anymore but it remains a possibility. Meantime, he'll try to do what Justin Snow couldn't do in 2012. He'll try to fend off the next wave of long-snapping specialists, without malice or resentment.
"When you see Cardona," Overton was saying before the combine, "tell him I said hello, and he's got my support."
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