02/21 — The trouble with the NFL Combine workouts and the draft — and no doubt also the reason this is the most wonderful time of the year for many fans — is that one can make a case for any number of players being just the right fit for one's team.

Such is the case with Michigan tackle Jake Long. He'd make a fine Jet — or Dolphin or Raider or Chief or whichever team finally decides to make him its choice at the top of the first round of April's draft.

"What will a team get if it drafts me?" Long said at the podium in the large media room of the Indianapolis Convention Center late this morning. "They'll get a hard-working, passionate player who comes to work and gives 100 percent every day and has a true passion for the game."

Passion's only part of it. Long provides answers to questions that are short and sweet and punctuated with his wry little smile — "little" being a relative term since it's on the face of a body that stands 6'7" and 313 pounds.

Reporters drew him out on two incredible statistics: that over his four seasons at Michigan, the first two at right tackle, the last two on the left side, he had committed only two penalties and given up only two sacks.

"Yeah, they actually got me for one this season, a false start against Northwestern," Long said of his penalties. "The first one was my redshirt freshman year. I had a holding penalty."

And the sacks?

"This year I gave up one, to Vernon Gholston of Ohio State. And I gave up one to Michigan State my redshirt freshman year."

Boy, that first year was a rough one. But since then ...

Long was asked to expand on the sack by Gholston, the Buckeyes OLB who's another player many Jets fans covet.

"Vernon's a great player," he said matter-of-factly, without excuses. "He had a good move on me. I let it up."

As you can see, expansion is also a relative term for the big guy. But sincerity is an absolute. Long has a reverence for the game of football, whether on the college level that he knows or on the pro level that he has yet to experience.

About being named captain of the Wolverines each of the last two years, he said: "To get that twice is the greatest honor I could get at Michigan. I try to live up to it every day. It means I have the responsibility of being a leader on and off the field, of leading by example, being the best player out there, and leading my team to victories."

And he hardly flinched when a Miami reporter asked him how he'd feel if the Dolphins, currently holding the top pick, spent it on him.

"It would be an honor," he said. "I've had some informal meetings with them. It would be a great honor."

Bob Wojnowski had a great line about him in the Detroit News back in November, after Michigan had battled back from its embarrassing 0-2 start to a 7-2 mark:

"Third-and-short usually becomes third-and-Long."

Sounds like a great slogan for the lucky team that grabs him in a little more than two months.

With offensive linemen and tight ends visiting reporters today, Long was the only top-of-the-draft name to pop in. I'll provide profiles of a few of the other top-of-the-draft players as they become available Friday and Saturday.