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Is your mother a prostitute?

Now there’s a question you don’t hear every day in a job interview.

But then again, this is another wrinkle out of the NFL draft; a made-for-TV circus that has grown to scream success and popularity -- no matter what money-driven madness comes along with it.

And does it ever.

That query, by the way, was apparently popped to Oklahoma State receiver Dez Bryant by Miami Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland during their pre-draft interview. Yahoo reported it Tuesday, Ireland apologized for it, and now the talk show and Internet universes have run wild with the story.

An inappropriate, tasteless, classless question? Sure. Even if Bryant’s mother has a past of legal issues, including jail time for drug sales. Even if its purpose was to measure the poise of a potential rookie receiver - would he keep his cool or perhaps dump a pot of coffee over the head of the general manager? Human resource directors everywhere must be pulling out their federal guidelines for job interviews, checking to see if they missed that page.

Also, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, ever vigilant in his protection of the league image, must be slapping his head and sighing, “What next?”

The Ben Roethlisberger mess is still quite large in his rear view mirror, but many will pose their own interview question: Is one of your general managers a blockhead?

If proper conduct of league conduct is so paramount, this would seem to have created a tarnish. Certainly it makes the Dolphins look less than admirable. Might be time, at the very least, for a pointed phone call from the league office.

Men can act stupidly, no matter how good their gig. If they didn’t, why would a guy cheat on Sandra Bullock?

But we’ll leave that debate to mention one of the larger issues from this latest foolishness. The NFL Draft is fascinating and important, but it has also been hyped and glamorized into a monster that is becoming void of common sense. Mel Kiper Jr. in Wonderland.

Rookies who have not yet proven they can read the playbook, let alone execute it, are routinely handed salaries far larger than proven veterans.

The first round, with its instant riches, is now considered such holy ground, any poor stiff who falls further is immediately branded, not for the skills he is missing, but the money. Witness the hand-wringing over Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen, stuck with the infamy of going in the second round.

To hear the derision, you’d have thought passes were coming out of his hand end over end. But the second round is one round sooner than Joe Montana and four earlier than Tom Brady. Every fragment of analysis delivered gravely from a thousand experts is considered vital and unimpeachable. Even though at the end of the day - or three days now - the only thing for certain is that nobody knows anything for certain.

In 2007, thousands of promising words were heaped upon the draft’s No. 1 pick, who would revive the Oakland Raiders; quarterback JaMarcus Russell. Three years later, his release from the Raiders is expected any hour. He will leave, numerous reports have it, pushing 300 pounds on the scale and having been paid upwards of $39 million for 18 touchdown passes and seven wins in three seasons - or $5,571,428 per victory.

Driven by the fear of blowing such loot, NFL teams now resort to any ploy to dissect the names on their draft board -- up to, and probably including -- a Ouija board.

And so, when a receiver with family issues sits down in the meeting room with a man from the Dolphins -- who might be asked to pay him millions before his first catch -- anything must seem fair game.

What would Freud have asked?

Is your mother a prostitute?

An irrational question. Just like the event that provoked it.

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I would have remembered that