NFL General Manager Explains How Teams Will Handle Manti Te'o

Getty ImagesWe may never know what exactly happened with the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax, but according to Peter King of Sports Illustrated, the most thorough investigations yet, will be conducted by NFL teams leading up to the draft.

King went on "The Dan Patrick Show" and spoke about a conversation he had with one NFL general manager. According to that GM, his team has Te'o as one of the eight or ten best seniors entering the NFL Draft. King speculated that Te'o would drop to "around 20" once juniors declare for the draft.

The GM told King, that with "character cases" that are ranked that high, the team will either hire an investigator or send a scout "for a couple of weeks" to investigate everything about the hoax.

The teams will then use information gathered during the investigation when they interview Te'o at the NFL Combine. "The key there is that they want to ask him questions that they already know the answers to," said King. "So that if Manti Te'o tells them an answer they didn't expect, they'll know he's lying."

So in the end, the hoax itself may not be as important to NFL teams as how honest Te'o is to them about what really happened.