At some point Monday evening, Damien Robinson will stand behind the podium in the ball room of a posh Carlsbad, Calif., resort hotel, and stare out at an audience comprised of 261 NFL rookies who are even more nervous than him.

This time, the New York Jets free safety will have advice, not an assault rifle.

Arrested last October, when he unwittingly attempted to enter Giants Stadium with the Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle and the 200 rounds of ammunition he had stashed in the back of his SUV, Robinson eight months later is more than contrite. In fact, Robinson is comfortable enough now with the episode and the embarrassment it visited upon him and the Jets organization that he can publicly address it head-on.

And that's precisely what Robinson will do as a member of the "player conduct" panel scheduled to meet with first-year players at the league's fifth annual rookie symposium.

"Just maybe," Robinson said, "I can keep one player from making the same mistake."

In just a dozen words, pretty pithy fashion for a veteran player not given to conciseness or brevity, Robinson summed up the basic purpose of the symposium.

The four-day event, now a mainstay of the NFL offseason calendar, is inarguably one of the most significant league undertakings in recent years. The symposium, which begins Sunday, is important enough for the NFL to deem attendance as mandatory for every player selected in the draft. When a rookie is absent (just ask Ryan Leaf), he typically is fined, sometimes a five-figure penalty.

Preeminent in its stature among American professional sports, worlds ahead of every other league in terms of drug-testing and financial stability and labor peace, the NFL is now the leader as well in attempting to educate first-year players about the ramifications of their newfound celebrity. The operative word there is "attempting," because the NFL has yet to bat 1.000 in keeping rookies out of trouble. Given that the NFL is the only league even at bat when it comes to such programs, however, it deserves credit for so much as venturing outside the dugout.

	“	I know the first reaction from a lot of guys was like, 'Man, why do we have to put up with this (stuff)?'But if you pay attention, and aren't sitting there squirming the whole time or wondering when you're going to be done, it really is a valuable thing. You're hearing it straight from the mouths of guys who have been there and done that. And that should mean something. ”
		— Richard Seymour, Patriots defensive tackle on the rookie symposium

There are, to be sure, still a few ostriches in the league. But for the most part, the NFL long ago stopped burying its head, and opted to try to keep young players from burying themselves with injudicious decisions. Thus the annual rookie symposium, an estimable and worthwhile endeavor, one that is probably even more successful than many of the participants care to admit.

Even in a relatively fallow news stretch, the symposium still gets overshadowed in stories about mini-camps, or the signing of a seventh-round draft choice. But a lack of headlines doesn't mean the NFL isn't making headway in providing its youngest players cautionary views they can use.

It would be naïve to suggest every rookie exits the symposium with a Ph.D. in common sense or a doctorate in decorum. But in providing the groundwork with discussions on subjects that range from dealing with the media to handling the battalion of hangers-on that characteristically glom onto high-round draft choices, the league better prepares its rookie rank-and-file on the possible pitfalls ahead.

"It's important because it, hopefully, helps the rookie players get off to a good start with regards to this new lifestyle they're about to enter," said Mike Haynes, the NFL's vice president of player development and a Hall of Fame member. "The purpose is to educate the guys about a lot of things they never had to deal with, or maybe some things that they don't know how to deal with."

The league spends in the high six-figure range to transport its rookies, to bivouac them in accommodations several cuts above your nearest Red Roof Inn, to arrange speakers who it feels will connect with the assemblage. It is, to be sure, a meaningful investment.

This year's speakers will include Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan and Charley Casserly, general manager of the expansion Houston Texans. Among the moderators and panel members are ESPN football analysts Mark Malone ("Life In and After Football") and Merril Hoge ("Life as a Rookie").

The roster of speakers and moderators also includes Marcus Allen, Irving Fryar, Craig James, Marcellus Wiley, John Lynch, Robert Porcher, Keyshawn Johnson, Troy Vincent and Kendrell Bell, among others.

Two years ago, the speaking staff included Baltimore middle linebacker Ray Lewis, who addressed the rookies only months after being acquitted of double murder charges, and whose tale seemed to resonate with the players in attendance.

Those kinds of high-profile personalities don't necessarily translate into an instant cure for attention deficit disorder, and there will be rookies who will spend four days counting the hours until freedom, others who will regard the sessions as empty propaganda. But most players who have attended past rookie symposiums acknowledge that, even if they ventured into the exercise with zero expectations, they characteristically departed having gleaned a real-life lesson or two.

"I know the first reaction from a lot of guys was like, 'Man, why do we have to put up with this (stuff)?'" said New England Patriots defensive tackle Richard Seymour. "But if you pay attention, and aren't sitting there squirming the whole time or wondering when you're going to be done, it really is a valuable thing. You're hearing it straight from the mouths of guys who have been there and done that. And that should mean something."

Notable is that Seymour is returning this weekend as a member of the "Life as a Rookie" panel along with fellow second-year veterans Bell, Tony Dixon and Todd Heap. And for some of the veteran speakers and moderators, like Fryar and Casserly, this will mark a return engagement as well.

An ordained minister, Fryar usually shares with the rookies his tale of the circuitous route he traveled, from being a player who didn't even respect himself to a veteran regarded as sage. Robinson isn't certain yet exactly what words of wisdom he will impart to all those rookies seated in front of him on Monday, of how to drive home his point, of how to keep from being too preachy.

He will start, though, with a basic premise -- do as I say and not as I've done -- and work out from there. He figures he doesn't need much more motivation than his own personal experiences to fashion his message.

"Basically, I'll tell them I'd hate to see anyone go through what I did, and that's simply the truth," Robinson said. "That ought to be enough."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.