Greetings from southern Alabama, where the shrimp is fresh, the footballs are flying and the breezes off the Gulf of Mexico are a tad nippy.

Day 1 of Senior Bowl week is in the books, and one can’t blame the players on both the North and South squads if they were thankful for finally stepping onto the practice fields and getting to work. It’s the famously hyper-competitive practices under the watch of hundreds of scouts and coaches that help make this week one of the more important junctions along the road to the NFL Draft. The players came to display their wares on the field, to work within the framework of hastily assembled teams and impress onlookers as unique individuals.

Yet at 10:45 a.m. Monday morning, the players were less individuals and more like commodities.

The annual weigh-in here in Mobile witnesses approximately 500 scouts and coaches crowded into a convention-center ballroom, with each player’s height and weight called out in carnival-barker style. Each of the 100 players stands on the stage to have his measurements taken, then walks down a path in the middle of the room, not unlike a model on a runway.

All this in their underwear.