UGA’s Blankenship could become 1st kicker to have name called in this year’s draft

What do Joe Burrow, Chase Young and Rodrigo “Hot Rod” Blankenship have in common? They are the arguably the best players in this year’s draft at their respective positions.

Channel 2′s Alison Mastrangelo caught up with the former Sprayberry High and Georgia kicker who has been counting down the days until he hears his name called on draft night.

While his workouts haven’t gone exactly how he imagined they would, he’s making the best of it.

“You can do flexibility and core work at home and other than that you hedge your bets and hope you can find a field where no one is going to kick you off,” Blankenship said. “Pretty much all the fields are closed off it’s how it’s been.”

The Lou Groza winner was one of three kickers invited to participate in this years NFL combine. He feels fortunate that he the was able to go since Georgia’s pro day was canceled.

“It was a great experience to get on the field and get a little bit of workout in. That’s the last thing they’ll have it’s the last impression of us up until the draft," he said.

Now instead of private workouts with teams, Rodrigo is taking phone and video calls with NFL scouts and special teams coordinators.

He says you can get kind of get a sense for how interested a team is by the length of the phone call.

“I don’t want to go into too many specifics about who- but there’s been a bout 10 or 12 teams who are really interested.”

Blankenship could become the first first taken off the board, something he isn’t taking for granted.

“It will be a dream come true to be taken at all,” he said.

Blankenship will be watching the draft either in Athens or Marietta with his family.

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