NFL Scouting Combine: Why should we watch?

Good Morning Mocks Fans, and welcome to the start of the 2016 NFL Draft Season with the first event: The NFL Scouting Combine! Some of you are asking yourself “what is the NFL Combine?” I’m so glad you asked! The NFL Combine is where college football players run the 40 yard dash! I know you were wondering where we discovered that Chris Johnson could run it in 4.24 seconds and completely change his life.

Okay, maybe I’m not telling you the whole story……you caught me.

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The NFL Scouting Combine is series of workouts and drills specialized for each type of position in football. It is for players exiting their college careers and headed to the NFL, and it allows the NFL coaches and scouts to see the best players in college football show just how fast they can run, how high they can jump, how much they can lift, and just how hard they can work.

“So why the hell should I bother watching? I’m not a coach or scout?”

Valid question, I’ll give you that.

Every year that I watch it people look at me like I’m nuts. Maybe I am a little bit, but that just adds character I think. I watch it because it shows just how hard players are willing to work….or not work. At this point in the offseason EVERY year, and I do mean EVERY year, there are certain NFL prospects who seem like a “can’t miss”, and they expect them to be amazing when the combine comes.

Then EVERY year at least one or two of those players under perform at the combine and kill their draft stock. There are many other ways for them to ruin their draft stock, but we’ll just stick to the combine for now.

On the flip side, there are players that may not be household names that really turn your head. As I mentioned before, Chris Johnson was not a household name coming out of college, until three numbers changed his life: 4.24. He ran 40 yards in 4.24 seconds…..that’s just stupid. That’s crazy! That’s impossible! Well it happened!

Dontari Poe of the Kansas City Chiefs was not a household name until he showed out in a way none of us expected. This mammoth weighed in at 346 pounds (at 6’4”). That is a massive human being. He ran a 4.98 40 yard dash and put up a staggering 44 reps on the bench. If you did not know, the bench weighs 225 pounds and you have to see how many continuous reps you can do without any help from a spotter at all. If you mess up a rep you don’t start over or re-rack it, you just continue and that rep does not count. He did incredible at the drills, and boosted himself into the early section of the first round.

That did not just show he was a freak of nature or anything like that. He showed just how hard he worked to get ready for the combine. He prepared himself well enough to vault himself into stardom. That is exactly the work ethic that teams are looking for when looking for who they would like to draft.

The next part of it, is more than just work ethic. Let’s use Dontari Poe as an example again. How many of us actually watch Memphis Football? If you don’t go to Memphis, odds are you don’t watch their program very often. Would any of us have paid that close of attention to Dontari Poe without that combine effort? After seeing that incredible performance, the next move went something like this “WOW! This guy is a beast! Let’s go back and re-watch some of his film, maybe we undervalued him!”.

Chris Johnson went to East Carolina…..do any of you really watch East Carolina? Didn’t think so…..GO PIRATES!

The point is, without the combine some players would never be able to make the impact on scouts and coaches that they never did in the season. Last year one of my favorites to watch at the combine was Chris Conley from Georgia….I promise this is not just because he went to Georgia. Georgia is a major football program whose identity recently has been the running game, so who is going to pay attention to a receiver from there right? He worked his butt off and ran a 4.35, 45 in vertical jump and 139 inch broad jump, essentially torching the competition. He vaulted himself from being virtually undrafted to the 3rd round because teams started watching his film more closely and saw what Georgia fans saw, an extremely talented wide receiver who belongs in the NFL.

If you don’t need my reasons for it, how about we ask some of the other writers here at NFL Mocks about their opinions of the NFL Combine?

Shawn Spencer

"“Most of the drills at the Combine just confirm what you see on tape. If it doesn’t match what the tape shows, I go back and watch more tape to make sure I’m grading the prospect appropriately. If you’re going to pay attention to one drill, make sure it’s the three-cone drill. It reveals more strengths and/or weaknesses than any other drill and will give a good indication of the type of athlete each prospect is.”"

Eric Robinson

"“The Combine is important because it allows coaches/GMs/scouts to get an up close and personal observation on prospects. It also gives the prospects a chance to further solidify their draft status, improve their status, or in some cases, truly hurt their status. The Combine is way more than a 40 yard dash in tights. The drills have just as equal importance.”"

Rodney Stokes

"“It allows those watching to know the raw value of prospects that are being scouted. It gives GMs and scouts another angle on identifying players for schemes and usage that they may not have played in at the college level. It’s a solid assessment of natural ability but it should also not be mistaken as future success for an NFL player.”"

Do you still need convincing? If I haven’t convinced you to watch by now, well I don’t really know what to tell ya. In a year where there is not one truly dominant player at each position, the combine this year should be one of the most exciting that there has been in recent years. They are going to be pushing each other to their limits for sure, and as if there wasn’t enough incentive to perform Adidas is offering a million dollars to the player that can break Chris Johnson’s 40 yard dash record while wearing Adidas cleats.

Point is, find a way to watch the NFL Combine and see who your favorite team might be drafting. As for me, I’m excited to see what Derrick Henry can do. If that 245 pound beast of a running back can run a sub 4.5 40 yard dash while putting up over 30 reps on the bench, I will be blown away. Just like I told you all season, get your beer, chips, pizza, whatever you feel like having while you watch football, and enjoy the madness of the NFL Combine!

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