Robert Nkemdiche slides into perfect spot

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I was with Robert Nkemdiche when he got the call. No, not that call — not the one he received Thursday night from the Arizona Cardinals, informing the former Ole Miss defensive tackle that he would be the 29th pick of the 2016 NFL draft. By then, the green room was mostly empty. Nkemdiche hung up his iPhone and immediately bear-hugged Denzel, one of his two older brothers, perhaps a subtle act of defiance considering that many teams don’t want the troubled Denzel around. Nkemdiche walked down stairs and around a corner, grabbed a red Cardinals hat and walked toward commissioner Roger Goodell.

Editor’s PicksShould NFL teams worry about Robert Nkemdiche?

Once considered to be a lock for the top five, the talented but enigmatic Robert Nkemdiche can’t fathom how buying a panther might be an issue for NFL teams.

No, I was with him when he got the call from the NFL, offering him the mixed blessing of attending the draft in person. As with most things with Nkemdiche, the call was a little weird. In the two days I spent with him for this story, chronicling his perplexing yet endearing obliviousness in the face of an out-of-control draft evaluation process, the moment when he got the call made me shudder most. Even more than his professed interest in buying a pet panther, attending the draft seemed like a disaster in the making. He was once considered a top-five pick. Now, after an uneven season that ended when he fell out of a hotel room window, nobody knew how far he’d drop. The image of countless players sitting in the green room waiting for their names to be called, checking their phones, pretending to keep it cool, whispering to their agent, checking their phones again — that painful annual spectacle of a young man being broken on live television — seemed a certain fate for Nkemdiche. Many thought he’d slide out of the first round altogether, joining the sad list of players such as Geno Smith and others who …

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