It's not every day that the Washington Redskins call up a man convicted of rape and ask him if he'd agree to a one-day workout, but it happened Tuesday.
Oh, and the Kansas City Chiefs called Tuesday, too. And the Miami Dolphins. And they were three days behind the Seattle Seahawks, who will work him out on June 7.
Why are all these NFL teams eager to check out a convicted sex offender, a man who served five years in prison and wore a GPS ankle bracelet for another five?
Because Brian Banks didn't do it.
A judge in Long Beach, Calif., threw out his kidnapping and rape conviction last week after looking at a videotape of his accuser admitting she lied. After 10 years, he was suddenly a free and innocent man.
"My mouth hurts from smiling so much," Banks told me Tuesday night. "Unbelievable."
Banks was 16 in 2002, the bluest of blue chips out of Long Beach Poly High School, an NFL feeder if there ever was one. He'd already been offered a full-ride scholarship at USC by then-coach Pete Carroll.
But on a summer day that year, he and a girl named Wanetta Gibson decided to go make out in a stairwell at school. When they came out, she accused him of rape.
.....
"I'll make 'em happy," says Banks, who's been training non-stop since October. "After all I've been through these last 10 years, I can still do some things that will impress you."
Like ... dead-lift 545 pounds, box jump 55 inches flat-footed, broad jump 10-plus feet and run a 4.6 40, all at 6-foot-2 and 245 pounds. NFL trainer Gavin Macmillan, who has volunteered to train Banks for free, says he has a shot. "You see him run and you can see why USC wanted him."
And if the NFL doesn't pan out? Banks already has all kinds of job offers. One of them is to "work in the front office and explore other sports opportunities" for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
