He was but 21 at the time, all nerve and will. His gaze never lowered, the eyes didn't dart away.

No, head-on he came, plowing right into the question.

"Hey, man, I always think that whatever team takes a look at me is going to have a very intelligent football player, a guy who understands what needs to be done on the football field and comes ready to go every single day. A guy who never short-changes his teammates."

Al Wilson said that. Said it in April 1999, before he had played a single down of NFL football.

And that's exactly how he has played every down of NFL football. Wilson, who was informed last week of his release by the Broncos, is simply hoping for the best at the moment, hoping a neck injury heals enough so he can get back on the field.

His NFL career, eight seasons in Denver in all, now awaits the decisions of doctors and the ability of his body to recover from all the collisions he has tossed it into.

It is ironic that this comes as another draft approaches. Because Wilson, in many ways, is the face - one of many through the years - of what is measured and what is not.

When Wilson was set to enter the NFL, there were some scouts who, believing in little else besides football's trinity of height, weight and speed, thought he was simply too small to bring what he had done as an All-American at the University of Tennessee into the league.

The raw data said he was just 6-foot, 239 pounds. Big for a stroll downtown, not so much head-up on the fullback.

Still, the late Glen Cumbee, a longtime Oilers/Titans scout who spent his workdays patrolling the Southeast, saw Wilson plenty in those trips. And when Cumbee had finished looking at all of the collegiate resume, all of the wins, all of the crumpled runners left in Wilson's wake, he came to a conclusion.

He simply called Wilson "a storm-the-hill, plant-the-flag guy."

The Vols routinely have a list of NFL players in waiting. Each year, they churn out some of the fastest, most-gifted prospects in almost any draft.

But only one of those teams in the past five decades or so has come away with the national championship - the 1998 edition. And there is absolutely no one who has spent any time around the Tennessee program who wouldn't say Wilson was the leather-throated heart and the impassioned guts that launched that team to the trophy.

Against No. 2 Florida that season, Wilson made 12 tackles and forced three fumbles in a 20-17 Tennessee overtime win in Knoxville.

That said, pro personnel executives around the league are fairly divided in their opinions about Wilson's play in the Broncos defense over the past three years.

Some believe the punishment he has taken over the years has robbed him of some of his trademark explosiveness and injuries, like playing most of two seasons with a fractured thumb, have caused too many missed tackles.

Others believe if the team's defensive front had played a little better overall, few would have noticed any difference.

And some scouts, still remembering only what the ruler said, how the scale told the story eight drafts ago, will look at the eight years Wilson put in before injuries forced him to the sideline and mark one down for the data.

They will say he is too small to withstand what he did on a football field.

In the end, though, it is always interesting to see what NFL teams do with the rest of the puzzle once one of the biggest pieces is removed. This is where the Broncos sit at the moment, staring into another draft and looking for help in the places they need it.

Churning the data, trying to see what might be when they look at the players in front of them.

They certainly can find a linebacker, if they wish to do so, who is 6-foot; they certainly can locate one who is within a buffet stop or two of 239 pounds; and they will be able to find the 4.51-second speed in the 40 that Wilson had when he arrived to the league.

If they look again for a player like Wilson, what you see is not everything you get. The power of personality still means something in the NFL; leaders still count.

And while victory always makes for a crowded podium, defeat is the real window into a team's soul.

Who stands tall, who doesn't. Who's willing to roll up his sleeves and work for change, who isn't. Who is willing to actually plant the flag and who just wants to be in the picture.

And you always knew what side of the equation Wilson was on.

Always.