Scrutinized Dorial Green-Beckham addresses off-field concerns

Former Missouri wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham was the top high school recruit in the country in 2012, but he faces serious questions as he heads to Indianapolis for the NFL scouting combine.

Mizzou dismissed Green-Beckham last April amid accusations of a physical altercation with his girlfriend, even though charges were not pressed in the case. Tigers head coach Gary Pinkel, who once helicoptered in to watch one of DGB's high school games, couldn't justify keeping Green-Beckham in the program because of the violent nature of the case.

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Green-Beckham also had a few marijuana-related incidents at the school and was forced to leave. He transfered to Oklahoma, where sources have told Shutdown Corner he kept himself on the right side of things in the past several months, but the questions over his character will not escape him with NFL teams.

The interview process at the combine might be as scrutinized for DGB as it will be for any highly rated player in the 2015 draft crop, and that includes Jameis Winston. A freakish talent at 6-foot-6 and 225 pounds, Green-Beckham caught 87 passes for 1,278 yards and 17 touchdowns in two seasons at Missouri.

Green-Beckham has turned down numerous interview requests recently (including to SDC when we visited the EXOS training facility he's working at in Arizona), but he did speak with NFL Network about his path to the draft and the questions he'll face.

After showing DGB working through a training regimen at EXOS, he opened up a bit about his past — in broad and fairly vague strokes, mind you.

"Everything got a little crazy after my freshman year at Missouri," he said. "Thinking about it now, I would take back all the incident I put myself in and just do the right thing and be smart about it."

DGB seemed to blame himself for associating with the wrong crowd as being one of the reasons he found himself in trouble in just over two years in Columbia, Mo.

"I've learned to put better people around me and to do what's right and take the opportunities I have and just run with [them]," Green-Beckham said.

Kyle Evans, one of DGB's agents, also spoke during the piece.

"We all know what he's capable of doing physically," Evans said. "We know that Dorial has a lot of questions to answer about character concerns. That's what people are going to look at [from] the outside in, that they want those things answered."

Evans added, "We know who Dorial is. We know what character he possesses. Him just being himself is going to address all those concerns."

It's easier for Green-Beckham to admit fault with an NFL Network puff piece. But how will he handle the white-hot spotlight when teams grill him on every misstep he has made in his college career? And you better believe they'll bring the heat in those interview sessions, especially if he — like in this brief snippet — shows true contrition and takes responsibility for his actions. That wasn't really to be found in these particular words. 

To a somewhat lesser degree, there are football questions, too. Green-Beckham, as explosive a playmaker as he was for the Tigers (he did not play at Oklahoma while sitting out a redshirt season), there are concerns about his consistency and his speed.

At EXOS, the team's trainers have been working him hard on his 40-yard dash technique and have been prodding him for better mechanics. At his size, it would be unfair to expect DGB to run as fast as some of the elite track athletes at wide receiver.

But EXOS performance coach Nick Winkelman is heard telling Green-Beckham that he wants him to run in the 4.4-second range, which would be an exceptionally fast time. (And for reminder's sake, both A.J. Green and Dez Bryant ran in the 4.5-second range at the combine.)

Still, the concerns center on DGB's maturity and whether a team can trust him. If so, he'll be a first-round pick; he might be a top-10 talent. But if Green-Beckham walks away from Indy after a poor set of interviews and on-field workouts, his stock — which is as volatile as almost any player there — could fall outside the first 32 picks.

A lot is at stake for the talented and troubled player who has an incredible ceiling if he puts it all together and eliminates his issues in the NFL.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm