Phil Savage is a former Sewanee quarterback and a former general manager of the NFL's Cleveland Browns.
He now is the color commentator for Alabama football radio broadcasts and the executive director of the Senior Bowl. Since the Crimson Tide's 42-35 loss to Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl on New Year's night, his focus has been on Saturday's Senior Bowl. He spent time this week discussing it on "Press Row" on Chattanooga's ESPN 105.1 The Zone.
Q: Alabama quarterback Blake Sims exceeded all expectations this past season. How important will the Senior Bowl be for him?
A: "The practices and the preparation and the behind-the-scenes work in the meeting room with the Jacksonville Jaguars coaching staff, which is working with him, is probably bigger for him. That said, his athletic ability will give him a chance to make plays on Saturday, because there are no blitzes in the game, and it's fairly vanilla football. He should be able to complete some passes, and when pressure does come, he's got the escapability to make a play, and that's what he did at Alabama really all season long.
"So far he's had a good showing. He's not an NFL starter, and I think everybody understands that, but does he have the capacity to be a backup? Maybe so."
Q: Auburn's Nick Marshall was given a late invitation as a quarterback but announced this week he will enter the NFL as a cornerback. Would someone have given him a shot at quarterback?
A: "I think long term that this is the proper decision for Nick Marshall. A week after the Iron Bowl, Gus Malzahn reached out to me in regards to Nick Marshall coming to the game as a quarterback, and I told him then that it would be an 11th-hour invite because there were other quarterbacks in front of him. We invited him as a quarterback last Friday, and he stayed at quarterback through the weekend. He went through meetings with the Jags as a quarterback on Monday night and rode the bus Tuesday morning to Fairhope Stadium across Mobile Bay in a quarterback jersey.
"When the bus arrived at the stadium, he said he was ready to make the move. It was a choice he made, and even his agent was not aware of what he had decided to do. His decision opens up the opportunity to be evaluated by 32 teams, whereas if he had stayed at quarterback, less than half a dozen teams would have been interested."
Q: Is the Senior Bowl a better gauge for some of these quarterbacks than next month's combine?
A: "The combine is the most overrated scouting tool in America. The only thing you get at the combine are the medical examinations, the 15-minute interviews and a series of drills these guys go and practice for the next month after this game. This is real football here, and I've tried to emphasize to all the players that this is where you make a lasting impression on the field.
"That is especially important for these quarterbacks, because behind Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, it's a wide-open race to see who that third quarterback is going to be. Garrett Grayson from Colorado State has done well here, and Bryce Petty from Baylor has been fairly impressive."
Q: In your time with the Senior Bowl, what players have capitalized the most on their opportunities, and which players have wasted their chances?
A: "Two years ago, we had Eric Fisher, an offensive tackle from Central Michigan, come in here. He was forecast as maybe a late-first-round pick. By the time the whole ordeal was over, he went No. 1 overall to the Kansas City Chiefs. Ziggy Ansah, the defensive end from BYU, came in that same year having played very little football in his life and was not on a single scouting list going into his senior year. He was OK in the Senior Bowl practices but had two sacks in the game, forced a fumble and was the MVP, and he became the fifth pick in the draft and had a great season this past year with Detroit.
"Only the players who didn't belong here to begin with and were going to be found out anyway get exposed at this game. It absolutely helps everyone else. Last year, Virginia Tech quarterback Logan Thomas had a horrific week of practices and a bad game, and he still went in the fourth round ahead of the likes of Aaron Murray, Zach Mettenberger and AJ McCarron, who were not here due to injury or by choice. This game is nothing but a positive for those who come here and compete."
Q: They basically made a movie about you last year with Kevin Costner playing the role of a Browns GM in "Draft Day." Did you see that movie, and how realistic did you think it was?
A: "I did go see the movie, and in New York City, of all places. There were about four people in the theater -- three Browns fans and myself. I pulled my hat down really low and watched the movie. The depiction of the agent world and the depiction of the fan bases and call-in talk shows were fairly accurate, but the storyline was Hollywoodized in terms of three trades in a single day and the way the movie concluded.
"They had a lot of subject matter, because they've had like seven GMs in 14 years, so I didn't see myself as the pivotal character."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.