On Mark Ingram's draft day, bread before butter

If Mark Ingram was 215 pounds of salad and bread — rather than sinew and bone — he wouldn’t be a top running back prospect in this year’s NFL draft, whose second round begins Friday.

But if the former Alabama star and 2009 Heisman Trophy winner hadn’t spent Thursday morning unveiling a 40-pound bust of himself that was composed entirely of Subway sandwich ingredients, well, some other draft prospect probably would have.

Such are the trappings and traps of Ingram’s incipient NFL stardom — a media tour telling reporters that he’s Subway’s newest Famous Fan (hence the sandwich statue) and that yes, the left knee, surgically repaired during his Alabama days, is perfectly fine.

“The knee’s a non-issue,” said the burly Ingram, who chuckled when I compared the knee questions to the endless controversy over President Barack Obama’s birthplace. “Everybody who’s important who has to make the decision has positive information. Anybody who doesn’t, I don’t know where they’re getting it from.”

Maybe from the kneeless sandwich version of him?

Max J. Dickstein (mdickstein@am-ny.com) is amNY’s sports editor.