The collective world of the NFL and all of its fans will be watching Indianapolis closely over the next few days. The sheer volume of activities the league puts these NFL draft prospects to are astounding. Here is what to keep a close eye on and what isn’t as important this week.
Medical checks matter
There might be no bigger aspect of the combine for teams than the thorough medical checks each player goes through. When you see your favorite prospect start to tumble on draft day and aren’t sure why, it probably happened here when some underlying medical red flag showed itself.
Be cautious of the stopwatch
Prospects spend the weeks after the end of the college football season preparing to run and jump at the combine. They go to special training programs, work with combine experts and dedicate countless hours to mastering these drills. I’ve always said players who really knock it out of the park on their drills show me more in terms of their commitment to training than the importance of the numbers themselves.
A lack of control in the workouts helps teams
The biggest difference between combine workouts and pro days is control. At on-campus workouts, prospects script out everything down to how many throws they make and who they are throwing to right there on their home turf. The combine removes all those factors.
Accurate measurements for the analytics crowd
All those exaggerated heights and weights you find on school sites will be corrected and the league will get all those specific analytic measurements like hand size and wingspan that so many analytics experts on teams covet.
Don't panic about guys who don't work out
Whether it is an injury or by design, players have no obligation to do everything at the combine and may pick and choose. And that is ok. These aren’t character or work ethic red flags. And in most cases probably isn’t even the choice of the prospects.
Those interviews get thigs started
This is also a great chance for teams to do player interviews and get to know the prospect off the field and check into those soft skills as well as address concerns about the players and let them tell their side of the story in their own words.
