NFL: How to fix the NFL Combine

Last week my seven-month-old son was sick and I stayed at home and looked after him; during that time I was able to watch the NFL Combine. Normally I have little to no interest in watching future NFL players do drills in shorts and a T-shirt, but since I was home anyway I watched. The biggest conclusion that I made was that NFL players are physical freaks. Human beings are not supposed to be that big and that fast. Athletes over two hundred pounds (in some cases more) running a 40-yard dash in sub 4.6 seconds is absurd. Derrick Henry is an absolute physical beast. Henry is 6-2 247 pound running back and ran a 40 time of 4.54, 37 in vertical and twenty-two reps on a 225-pound bench press. Those numbers are on par with Von Miller (who is a linebacker by the way).

Quite impressive results performance; however aren’t these athletes training for these events? I’m not taking anything away from Henry’s performance but from the time, the college football season ended athletes train for combine specific workouts which have little to no bearing on what kind of football players someone will be (Anyone remember Tom Brady’s combine performance?) This is what I would change about the combine. Why not make the combine more of a competition? Now I understand that athletes participating at the combine want to be the biggest, fastest, football player’s on the planet, and compete against each other in the measurable tests but could the NFL put these athletes against each other in an actual competition?

The National Championship game was on January 11th and the combine was March 24th. From the time the national championship until March 1 the athletes have off to relax, workout on their own, party, whatever. Then organized practices star to determine exactly who the best players are. I’m willing to bet that Jon Gruden and Trent Dilfer would love to have extended time with quarterbacks, teaching 3 step, 5 step drops, reading defenses, calling audile’s, and film review. Have you seen Gruden work with other collegiate QB’s during his show Gruden QB Camp Or Trent Dilfer’s

Want to know how a quarterback like Jared Goff works in a west coast offense? Give him two weeks with Gruden while NFL scouts watch. Defensively it would work out the same way. Let Ray Lewis coach the linebacker prospects. Ray Lewis played in both 3-4/4-3 schemes and could give an introduction how to play each position in each scheme. Take Noah Spence for example. Spence is currently projected as an outside linebacker in a 3-4 scheme; with more than three weeks of practice, NFL scouts would have a

Once the “practices” are over and the combine begins on the 24th athletes run the 40-yard dash, 3 cone drill, broad jump, high jump, Wonderlic, interviews, etc. Those would happen Wednesday and Thursday. Friday and Saturday would be competition days. Receivers running routes against the defensive backs would give an excellent insight on that can play corner or safety, which can play man to man or zone, plus the added bonus of having a Michael Irvin coached a group of receivers going up against Deion Sanders coached defensive backs. The trash talk between Irvin and Sanders would certainly add more fuel to the fire making it very very competitive. 7 on 7 drills (all skill position players) would introduce quarterbacks to reading an NFL style defenses, calling audile’s at the line of scrimmage, running a two min offense, etc. For the lineman, a drill called “middle” could be utilized to evaluate offensive and defensive lineman. Middle is a drill where offensive lineman (including tight ends) and running backs participate on the offensive side of the drill and defensive lineman and linebackers participate on the defensive side of the ball and the offense has to run the ball between the tackles. The offensive line can split between zone blocking and man blocking. The defense can switch between various fronts. Sunday is the final round of competition where a full on scrimmage happens. Teams line up on the twenty-yard line play it like a real game

One could argue that a player could get hurt participating in the combine that involves hitting and possibly ruin a player’s career before it starts. Potential injuries are a valid argument to not hit, but with over three hundred players at the combine, how many reps is each player going to realistically have? And couldn’t a player hurt himself at the combine? see Cardale Jones. As a coach for several years evaluating a player based on game tape and few days in shorts and a tee-shirt is very difficult. The best way to evaluate players is to have them compete against each other in drills and in-game situations that involve hitting. players typically fall into categories: a grinder who loves everything pertaining towards football, a game-day player who does their job in practice but nothing extraordinary until game time, then we have the Tarzan’s and the Jane’s. A player could look like Tarzan and impress with physical gifts, but play like Jane or a player could look like Jane and play like Tarzan. By putting player’s in-game like situations NFL scouts can avoid the Jane’s and focus on the Tarzan’s.

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