Draft season officially got rolling with prospects strutting their stuff at the NFL combine. Dapper Matt Ryan didn't throw a pass, but the BC product still impressed with his all-business demeanor

McFadden (above) went all out last weekend to improve his draft stock, but Ryan will wait for his pro day. Todd Rosenberg/SI

Ten years ago, at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis, a tall, lanky passer began distancing himself from the pack of quarterback prospects without ever throwing a ball. Tennessee's Peyton Manning was so intent on learning everything he could about every team in the NFL that he carried a legal pad with him and took notes on coaches, general managers and players he'd be encountering in the NFL.

Last weekend at the combine, another tall, lanky quarterback was separating himself from the rest without throwing a football. Boston College's Matt Ryan had prepared for his individual interviews with NFL teams by reading the bios of coaches and general managers and asking an NFL quarterbacks coach for insight into the combine process. Then he wore a blue dress shirt, pleated gray slacks and tan dress shoes -- in sharp contrast to the sweat suit and sneakers favored by other prospects -- when he met with potential NFL employers. After Ryan left his Saturday-night interview with the Kansas City Chiefs, club president Carl ­Peterson looked around the room and said, "Now that's what a first-round pick should look like and sound like."

That's not to say that Ryan's also going to mimic Manning on the field; he's more mistake-prone and less accurate than Manning was coming out of Tennessee. In the end Ryan's 45 Boston College game tapes will mostly determine which team spends a first-round pick on him come April 26. But Ryan is so polished, so prepared, so...

"Peyton," said Ryan's agent, Tom Condon, who serves Manning in the same capacity and prepped both quarterbacks for the combine. "They're extraordinarily bright, very determined, with phenomenal attention to detail. Peyton didn't miss anything. I remember him calling me after the draft a few years ago to get a complete rundown on one of my clients, [cornerback] Andre Woolfolk, drafted by the Titans, and he was upset. He said, 'Damn! I don't need another big corner in my division.' Matt's like that. He doesn't miss anything either."

And just like Peyton -- and Tim Couch, Eli Manning and JaMarcus Russell, all No. 1 picks -- Ryan's decision not to throw at the combine shouldn't affect his draft position. For other projected high draft picks who took part in the long weekend's activities, there were notable developments.

Equal parts football workout, media circus, agents' convention and autograph show, the combine has become much more than the annual midwinter kickoff to NFL draft season. Held in the Indiana Convention Center and the adjacent RCA Dome, this year's carnival attracted 333 college prospects, 430 members of the media and about 800 agents, all of whom shared the wide hallways with a cheerleading competition and a gymnastics event taking place in the convention center. It was strange to see Tony Dungy and Tom Coughlin walking gingerly through squads of sparkly faced nine-year-olds as the Super Bowl-­winning coaches made their way to workouts inside the Dome. Even stranger was former NFL cornerback Toi Cook prospecting for the next Evander Holyfield on behalf of a Los Angeles fight promoter. "There are five people here this weekend who could be heavyweight champion," Cook said on Saturday, "and my job is to find them."

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