Norm Chow looked at the tackle he left behind at USC, and he saw a player ripe with possibility."An athlete is an athlete, and Winston Justice is that," the Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator said at USC's pro day on April 2. "Left tackle, right tackle – he can play anywhere you want to put him. As an athlete, you can't put those limits on him."
That may not be an assessment shared by every team in the NFL, but it's clearly a perception that has picked up steam.
Once projected to be a tackle bound for the mid-to-late first round, Justice has seen a spike in his stock since the scouting combine in February. Questions about character issues have evaporated, and the remaining vacuum has been filled with rave reviews.
"He's going to be a great tackle for whoever gets him," Carolina Panthers coach John Fox said. "I think he's shown more than teams expected going into [the evaluation process]."
In the realm of numbers, Justice hasn't disappointed, out-measuring every tackle in the draft in almost every category – even Virginia's D'Brickashaw Ferguson, who is widely considered a top-five pick. But there aren't pro days and stopwatches for character, and getting over some of Justice's red flags has had little to do with what he's done on the field.
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