What's the point in asking a question if you already know the answer?

Jason Mitchell knew his knee was messed up. And he knew why it hurt so much.

Lying on the turf in Neyland Stadium, he didn't have to ask.

"I had one split second of a hateful thought," he says. "I think it was God's way of showing me that, man, you shouldn't think that way."

Mitchell doesn't think that way now. He never really did before.

Since that thought, Mitchell played nine more games on a frayed anterior cruciate ligament that only a few people knew about.

He sold cars, remodeled houses and worked in a graveyard. He ran in front of pro scouts and ran with no one watching.

Last month, he ran again. And he ran fast -- a 240-pound man covering 40 yards in 4.55 seconds.

Last summer, he was setting up chairs and tents in cemeteries, moving 300-pound headstones and working at everything else involved in the business of laying the dead to rest.

But Jason Mitchell, and his football career, is alive and well.

*

What Mitchell believes brought him so much trouble seems innocuous enough.

It was during the first game of his final season at Tennessee. The Vols were ranked third nationally and a trendy pick to win the 2005 national championship.

Starting for the first time at weakside linebacker, his natural position, he had already forced a fumble and recorded five tackles before he engaged Alabama-Birmingham's left tackle on a running play.

The play went away from Mitchell, but he won his battle. He had his man on his heels, pushing a much bigger player backward and upward.

He had leverage. And then he had the thought.

"For a split second I thought, 'Damn, something could happen to him. He's in a vulnerable position,' " Mitchell said. "I thought, 'I don't care if he gets hurt.' "

The play was over, and Mitchell says he should have eased up. Only before he heard a whistle, he heard a pop.

Jesse Mahelona, Tennessee's All-American defensive tackle, had fallen into Mitchell's left knee.

"I knew it was something serious, but I didn't know how serious it was," Mitchell said. "I heard the pop and everything."

Then he heard a voice.

It was the UAB player he'd been wrestling with on the play, asking if he was OK.

That's when Mitchell knew why his left knee was in so much pain.

"I'm not a dirty player," he says now, with the benefit of 18 months hindsight. "Not becoming one, well yeah, I was becoming a dirty player. It was not meant for me to be a dirty player."

It wasn't for another month that Mitchell learned he had torn both his ACL and MCL. His career at UT was over.

Only it wasn't.

*

The light is beginning to fade inside the Neyland Thompson Sports Center. It's March 2007, and Jason Mitchell trades good-natured barbs with former teammates C.J. Fayton and Antwan Stewart.

Sometimes he'll work out with Stewart and Fayton, but tonight he'll finish alone in the near dark like he usually does. He'll get in his sister-in-law's white Cadillac Escalade parked outside and drive home. Then he'll get up the next morning at 7 o'clock and go to work remodeling houses with a local contractor.

Mitchell, who graduated with an economics degree, can see himself fixing up houses to turn a profit. He's learning the specifics of the business now because he can and as a hedge against his NFL future.

Mitchell began remodeling houses shortly after returning to Knoxville to watch Tennessee's 28-24 loss to LSU last November. He stayed here in order to focus more on training.

His best friend from childhood, Robert Jefferson, moved with him and helped pay the bills for a few months until Mitchell got his feet under him.

It was a simple life, more like the one Mitchell sees ahead of him with or without football.

"I'm a simple guy," he says. "That car you see me driving, I don't need that. I'm cool with an old, busted-up pickup truck. I don't dress flashy. I'm going to get married, have a couple kids, a nice house and a truck I can get muddy.

"My wife can look good, she can have all that stuff. But me, I'm good."

That's even the attitude Mitchell had last summer. While he awaited a full release from his doctor, he returned home to Abbeville, La., and spent the sweltering Cajun summer in a graveyard.

He spent his time at the family business, a burial company owned by his brother. Instead of going to an NFL training camp, Mitchell spent his days in cemeteries. He'd help set up chairs and tents for burial services. He'd lug huge tombstones. He'd help sink burial vaults.

"I never made that tie of football being dead to me and working in a graveyard," he said. "I never thought about it like that. I never thought football was dead, and I'd downgraded myself to such a job."

Besides, he was working with and for family. And family is perhaps the biggest reason why Mitchell is back in Knoxville, giving football another chance.

As the sun sets on this day in early March, Mitchell's left knee is fully healed.

He's ready for the sprints and cone drills and bench presses for all those scouts in just a few weeks.

*

The walk from the training room to his car was one of the longest of Jason Mitchell's life.

He'd just been told about the torn ligaments he suffered against UAB. He needed to talk to someone, only no one answered their phone.

He tried friend and former teammate Eddie Moore. No answer.

His tried his brother Brandon. No answer.

The tears that he had to hold back in the training room came pouring out.

"I sat in my car for about 15 minutes and cried," Mitchell said. "I got it out of my system and I was done."

Surgery seemed imminent. There was time to get healthy before the NFL combine in February and pro day a month later.

Only Mitchell did the unthinkable. He decided he wasn't done. He wanted to play.

He told coach Phillip Fulmer. He told his position coach, defensive coordinator John Chavis. He told his mother and his brother.

Everyone advised against it. But Mitchell wouldn't be deterred.

"At the time, I was doing what I wanted to do," he said. "I was living out my dream, and you don't get a chance to live out your dream very often."

Only Tennessee's season wasn't a dream, it was a nightmare.

Mitchell played in UT's final home game against Vanderbilt -- a 28-24 loss giving up in the final minute -- and traveled to California for surgery the next day.

He sacrificed the surest route to the NFL for a 5-6 season and Tennessee's first postseason at home since 1989.

"If I had it to do over again, I probably would do the same thing. Even though I kind of regret it now," he says.

Fulmer doesn't use the word regret, but he's not certain he'd let another player do the same thing.

"I had huge mixed emotions about letting him do it," Fulmer said. "But he wanted to do it, and there wasn't going to be any further damage. I don't know if I'd do it again."

When Mitchell thinks about his decision, he stops and remembers a collage a friend made for him.

"One of the pictures is a picture of me running through the T for the last time," he adds. "I think about how I felt in that moment -- I can't replace that moment. I don't think a couple hundred thousand dollars could replace the way I felt that day."

Those were the terms Mitchell struck: A few hundred thousand dollars of future earnings for a handful of moments that will endure.

But that might not be the bargain anymore.

*

Angelo Wright seems like the perfect fit for Jason Mitchell.

In 16 years as an agent, he's earned a level of trust with front offices largely by unearthing players who went undrafted.

Wright, who represented Mitchell's older brother, Brandon, during his nine-year NFL career, had an eye for talent and a talent for getting overlooked players a shot.

The plan for Jason Mitchell was to try and get on a team's practice squad, or better yet, on an injured reserve list.

An open tryout with the Buffalo Bills in June didn't earn him a spot; neither did a smaller workout with the Kansas City Chiefs in February.

But two weeks ago, Wright did better than that by landing his client a free-agent contract with the New York Giants.

While Wright's track record helped wedge Mitchell's foot in the door, the agent is quick to deflect praise to his client.

"You take your hat off to a guy who's working a full-time job and finds the time to work out," Wright said. "He's got a pretty good upside to be a pretty productive player if given the right set of opportunities."

He made the most of his last one.

During Tennessee's pro timing day on March 21, Mitchell put the doubts to rest about his ability to perform. He did every drill and looked again like the player who began the 2005 season.

His 4.55-second time in the 40-yard dash was the third fastest time -- trailing only wide receiver and projected first-round draft pick Robert Meachem and defensive back Jonathan Wade.

He benched 225 pounds 23 times, six more than he did last year.

And he's shown teams how hard he's willing to work to get where he wants to go.

"He's got work ahead of him," Wright says. "I don't care who (the Giants) draft, they're not going to find someone with his athleticism. He needs to make the roster and become a contributor, just work hard and maximize his abilities.

"If he shows the same desire and commitment, I think those things will come through."

*

The question now is what happens next. Maybe Mitchell makes an impact. Maybe he becomes a starter. Maybe he's back in Louisiana this time next year.

The future is wide open.

Whatever happens, Mitchell has already achieved the goal he set for himself and articulated shortly before he signed with New York.

"My plan is to give it my all, my 100 percent," he said. "Be able to go through it all 100 percent health-wise, so I can't look back and say, 'If I was this' or 'If I was that.' "

Fulmer knows the ultimate answer to the questions facing Mitchell.

"Jason Mitchell's one of the finest young men I've ever been around," Fulmer said. "He's totally got his life together. Whatever he inevitably chooses to do at the end, he'll be successful.

"No doubt about it."