Time for the Combine
By Pat Kirwan
https://realfootballnetwork.com/2016/02/25/time-for-the-combine/
This time of year, everyone can start drawing his own comparisons at the scouting combine in Indianapolis. It’s at the combine that players are often reduced to a bunch of numbers referred to as their “measurables.” These numbers include everything from height and weight to the number of times a player can bench press 225 pounds. They include a prospect’s time in the 40-yard dash and the short shuttle (which tests agility and lateral movement), how far he can broad jump, and how high he can jump vertically. At the combine, players will have the length of their arms measured as well as their hand size, and they’ll all take the Wonderlic test. These numbers will stick to a prospect throughout the rest of the pre-draft process. Objective for the most part, they will be used relentlessly in comparing players who play the same position.
Scouts and coaches rely on measurables because they allow them to compare a prospect’s physical characteristics with those of a player who’s been successful in the NFL. Each evaluator has a chart defining key traits at each position, and each prospect is graded based on how his measurables stack up. If, for example, an offensive tackle is 6’5″, he gets 10 out of 10 points for that category. If he’s more than 300 pounds, he gets another 10 out of 10. That player is a 20-point prospect on this particular scale. A tackle who’s 6’4″ and 290 might only score an 18 on this chart, which could affect his eventual grade in the eyes of a particular team.
But not all numbers are equal, of course.
Hand size matters more when evaluating receivers and defensive linemen than when evaluating other positions. Arm length is a key factor for offensive linemen. If a scout finds a 6’0″ cornerback who can
run a 4.3 in the 40 and the short shuttle in under 4.0, he won’t care if the player scores in the single digits on the Wonderlic.
Everyone comes back from the combine with a ton of information. They’ve watched prospects in drills, conducted interviews with hundreds of players, and seen them all put through various tests of athleticism. Such a mass of information can be paralyzing, so sorting it all into a functional system is as important a part of the process as gathering it is.
Decision makers have to recognize that some scouts are great at gathering information but not as great at delivering it. Their scouting reports might be convincing, but they aren’t good at selling their players
when they’re sitting in a meeting with the rest of the front office. Some people prefer to receive their information in certain ways. For example, Mike Shanahan always liked to watch highlight tapes. He
watched cut-ups of 100 plays from a certain player on tape, and then made his decisions with them in mind. That can be a dangerous way of operating if you don’t have the eye and experience of Shanahan.
And, of course, there’s a ton of personal information that scouts accumulate for each prospect. Some of the information speaks to a player’s intangibles—qualities that are immeasurable, like leadership or
poise. The rest comes from a background check that will paint a more three-dimensional picture of a prospect’s character.
For instance, let’s say a scout likes a player and he has all the requisite measurables, but he played at Tulane. It may be helpful to know why he went there coming out of high school instead of a powerhouse like Alabama or LSU. Maybe he was a late-bloomer. Maybe his body didn’t develop until he was 20 years old. Whatever information a scout can gather may prove useful down the road.
After the combine comes the worldwide tour of pro days, when players work out on their own campuses. Again, they are put through all the requisite position drills and run all the tests that define a player’s measurables—the short shuttle, the bench press, the 40-yard dash, and so on. If there’s no one with a first- or second-round grade working out at a particular pro day, teams might only send a scout.
But to some coaches, pro days are critical. Paul Alexander, the offensive line coach of the Bengals, will show up at a pro day at South Dakota State because he saw a tape of the left tackle and observed some traits that he wanted to see in person. When coaches do attend pro days, they’re very interested in giving a guy instruction and seeing how fast he can learn it, take it out onto the field, and perform.
At the pro day, teams will videotape their interviews with a player. It may be the third time they’ve taped an interview with him—first at the Senior Bowl, then at the combine, and now at his pro day.
Teams sort through all the canned answers that players have prepared for these interviews, looking for any tiny bit of information that can be used in his overall evaluation. We interview a lot of draft-eligible prospects on the radio show, and coaches around the league love it because they know we’re asking the questions they want answers to. Because we know the process, we don’t let guys get away with canned answers. We ask football questions, and players know their interviews with us are going to be recorded and sent to clubs around the league. I know a lot of coaches are sitting in their cars listening to our interviews to see if anything gets revealed that they couldn’t elicit themselves. After about five weeks of pro days, coaches and scouts are brought back to the team headquarters. At this point, players can’t be worked out again, but a team can bring up to 25 players to its facility for one last visit and for team doctors to examine him one final time. He’ll meet with coaches, the owner, and possibly the team psychologist.
There’s a bit of gamesmanship involved at this point. Teams bring in not only players they will consider drafting; they also bring in players they want other teams to think they are considering drafting. This is
where much of the buzz that contributes to the dramatics that surround the draft is created.
