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and Tebow’s third-down outlet, leading the team in catches in the national championship win in 2008, the school’s second title in three years. “You see his athleticism and explosiveness, and as an athlete, it’s incredible,” said Tebow. By 20, Hernandez was a first-team All-American and winner of the 2009 John Mackey Award as the country’s top tight end. He could have written his own ticket if he’d kept his nose clean: been a high-first-rounder in the 2010 NFL draft and pulled an eight-figure bonus to sign. Instead, he cemented his don’t-touch rep by getting embroiled in a shooting outside a bar. “He was out with the Pounceys and [ex-Gator safety] Reggie Nelson, and some guys tried to snatch a chain off one of the Pounceys,” says the local reporter. “The guys drive off, then stop at a light, and someone gets out of a car and shoots into their car through the passenger window. One victim described the shooter as possibly Hispanic or Hawaiian, with lots of tattoos on his arms.” The Pounceys were questioned as witnesses to the crime, but Hernandez invoked his right to counsel and never gave a statement, most odd since he was also called as a witness. No charges have ever been filed, and the case is still open. Again, he walked away unscathed: he wasn’t even named in the police report. In hindsight, it might have been the worst thing for him. He seems to have concluded, with an abundance of probable cause, that he was untouchable.
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    In April 2010, a few months before the NFL draft, Hernandez sat down and composed a letter, or had his agent at Athletes First do so for him. (The firm is a top-tier NFL shop, repping Ray Lewis, Aaron Rodgers, and Clay Matthews, among others.) It was a Hail Mary pass to 32 teams, asking them to spike their bad reports and pick a dope-smoking, hair-trigger hothead. “My coaches have told you that nobody worked harder than me,” he wrote. “The only X-factor is concerns about my use of recreational drugs. To address that, I am putting my money where my mouth is” by offering to take eight drug tests during the season and to return a portion of his paycheck if found dirty. This was both delusional and an empty vow: the players’ union would block even one extra test and any attempt to pay back guaranteed money. After seeing his predraft psychological report, where he received the lowest possible score, 1 out of 10, in the category of “social maturity” and which also noted that he enjoyed “living on the edge of acceptable behavior,” a handful of teams pulled him off their boards and 25 others let him sink like a stone on draft day, April 24. Only one team took the bait, burning a midround pick on a guy with “character issues”: the stoop-to-conquer Patriots of Bill Belichick.
    Time was, the Pats were the Tiffany franchise, a team of such sterling moral repute that they cut a player right after they drafted him, having learned he had a history of assaulting women. But Belichick, the winner of three Super Bowl titles and grand wizard of the greatest show on turf, had decided long before he got to New England that such niceties were beneath him. Over a decade, he’d been aggregating power unto himself, becoming the Chief Decider on personnel matters. He signed so many players bearing red flags they could have marched in Moscow’s May Day parade (Randy Moss, Donte Stallworth, et al.), and began drafting kids with hectic pasts, assuming the team’s vets would police them. Some of this was arrogance, some of it need: when you’re picking from the bottom of the deck each spring, you’re apt to shave some corners to land talent.
    Hence, Hernandez, who’d make the Pro Bowl one season later on an NFL-minimum salary. Such was his immediate impact, in fact, that the Patriots rewrote the book on tight-end play. In 2011, the tandem of Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski blew away the