Ed Yozwick, Post-Gazette Click photo for larger image.

This is pro football's version of a beauty contest, with the swimsuit competition replaced by the event where contestants get weighed and measured while parading in their skivvies before 300-plus coaches, scouts and personnel types -- the kind of pre-draft scrutiny that answers the vital question: boxers or briefs?

For a couple of Western Pennsylvania players in particular, the upcoming NFL Scouting Combine means much more than a four-day exercise in showing skin and vying for most congenial interviewee.

Darrelle Revis of Pitt and Aliquippa wants to show athletic ability on the field and maturity off it, aspects that NFL folks may not know intimately from a junior cornerback forgoing his final season of eligibility.

	The Show What: The 2007 NFL Scouting Combine for NFL draft hopefuls. When: Thursday- Feb. 28. Where: Indian-apolis. Coverage: The NFL Network will provide 26 hours of original programming from the Combine, including three hours of live workouts daily from Saturday-Tuesday beginning at 11 a.m. The first broadcast will be 2 p.m. Thursday -- the Combine news conferences. Related article Steelers will be shopping a bit differently this year

Center Dan Mozes of West Virginia and Washington along with linebacker Paul Posluszny of Penn State and Hopewell High School are seniors whom the NFL has studied long and hard, coming away from the Senior Bowl with doubts about the speed and strength and agility of each after that stripped-down, all-star game.

They will be among the 326 invited prospects gathering in the Indiana Convention Center and RCA Dome from Wednesday through Sunday, enduring hours of probing, testing, interviewing, timing ... and even a little football stuff.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing," Revis said over the telephone earlier this week amid a break in his Arizona workouts. "You don't get to go to the one the year after."

Instead of a sash, they wear low numbers and get grouped by their positions.

Instead of questions about, say, engendering world peace, they will be judged on their emotions, their motivations, their football intellect and, of course, their abilities to leap, sprint, perform shuttle runs and drills around cones, and repeatedly perform a bench press with 225 pounds until their arms are weary.

Then, it's back to campus or a training site to prep for their school's Pro Day, when scouts come to them.

Still, this four-day window is a chance for players to perform on what is basically the NFL's turf. Revis, tagged with a 4.53-second time in a 40-yard dash he swears he never ran, figures he has much to prove to scouts who don't have the benefit of all-star games to further assess juniors suddenly opting for the draft.

"Basically, this Combine is to go out there and impress the coaches. One of them will be my future coach," said Revis, working out twice daily in Phoenix with some of his agent's other clients. "Coach [Dave] Wannstedt, he's really helped me a lot in this process. ... He told me, 'Don't get caught up in all the pressure, all of the coaches.' Just be relaxed, be myself and have fun."

That 40 time remains high on his agenda, though. "That's a prediction," Revis, 6 feet, 188 pounds, said of a time considered sluggish for a cornerback, especially one rated to go in the middle to late stages of the first round. So he plans to blow the RCA Dome's doors off? "Yesssssss," he added.

	Related articles Player Pos. School H.B. Blades LB Pitt Adam Graessle P Pitt Tyler Palko QB Pitt Darrelle Revis CB Pitt Jay Alford DT Penn State Levi Brown OT Penn State Player Pos .School Tony Hunt RB Penn State Paul Posluszny LB Penn State *-Tim Shaw LB Penn State Dan Mozes C WVU Steve Breaston WR Michigan Luke Getsy QB Akron *-played DE in college; NFL looking at him as LB Notes: Players on the list who also played high school football in the WPIAL: Tyler Palko (West Allegheny), Darrelle Revis (Aliquippa), Paul Posluszny (Hopewell), Dan Mozes (Washington), Steve Breaston (Woodland Hills), Luke Getsy (Steel Valley). Other Western Pennsylvania players are considered draft prospects, but weren't invited to the Combine.

Posluszny and Mozes similarly have a specific path to tread in Indianapolis. Both played in the Senior Bowl, where rules prohibiting blitzes, zones, motion and more than two-receiver sets tend to render generic the play of fellows who play on instinct and guile more than on size -- something Posluszny and Mozes lack for NFL scouts' tastes. Thus, the Combine is where they might display athleticism hardly witnessed during that short week of practice and watered-down game in Mobile, Ala.

"I didn't hurt myself in NFL eyes that week, but I don't think I helped myself at the same time," said Mozes, the Rimington Trophy winner who has been in Morgantown, W.Va., preparing. His preparations include losing the 10 pounds he added to his 6-2 3/8 frame for the Senior Bowl. Scouting services consider him a second-day prospect, though his zone-blocking experience could interest Atlanta, Denver or Green Bay. The Combine can help. "I'm not the biggest guy out there, so hopefully I can show them speed and athleticism."

Same for Posluszny, the 2005 Butkus Award winner measured at 6-1 1/2, 237 pounds. Playing in the middle of a 4-3 defense at the Senior Bowl didn't seem to answer NFL questions about him. For one thing, is he an inside or an outside linebacker in the pros after playing both in college?

"We have not formulated that decision yet; truly, we haven't," Steelers football operations director Kevin Colbert said. "We just finished the All-Star season; now we go to the Combine, see how big he is. Where does he fit? ... Does that limit whether he can play one, two, three positions for you? Who knows?"

Scouts, Inc., among others, point to Posluszny as a second-round prospect, though some team may covet him enough to expend a first-round pick. Penn State teammate Levi Brown, a left offensive tackle, is expected to join Revis in the first round while Nittany Lions tailback Tony Hunt -- a Senior Bowl MVP -- is a second-round candidate with teammates Tim Shaw, a linebacker, and defensive tackle Jay Alford both second-day possibilities.

Joining Revis in Indianapolis is a Pitt contingent that includes linebacker H.B. Blades, punter Adam Graessle and Senior Bowl backup quarterback Tyler Palko. Blades has been labeled a third- or fourth-round prospect, and the other two as second-day picks.

Mozes, who played in the Senior Bowl along with teammates Brandon Myles at receiver and Uniontown's Boo McLee at linebacker, is West Virginia's lone invitee to the Combine. At least he can take one valuable lesson gleaned from Mobile: the walk-across-stage-in-your-undies thing. "You feel weird with 300-some people you don't know staring at you," he said.