Great Blue North Draft Report

GREAT BLUE NORTH DRAFT REPORT
NEWS AND INFORMATION ON THE NFL DRAFT

SCOUTING COMBINE PREVIEW

Previewing the 2011 NFL Scouting Combine: By the numbers

by Colin Lindsay, Editor and Publisher, Great Blue North Draft Report

February 21, 2010

Combine home page
Combine participants - by position

Arguably, the most important week of the re-draft testing period gets underway in Indianapolis on Wednesday with the start of the annual scouting combine as 330 or so NFL draft hopefuls will be poked, prodded, tested - both mentally and physically - and otherwise put through a pressure cooker over the next six days. Needless to say, all 32 NFL teams will be well represented in Indianapolis this week with front office personnel people, scouts and coaches in attendance. Meanwhile, the participants at the combine were determined by a Selection Committee made up of the Directors of both the National and BLESTO scouting services, which combined represent twenty-six NFL teams, as well as members of various NFL player personnel departments.

Players are broken into 4 groups which will each undergo 4 full days of testing. The week will be lead off with the TEs and offensive lineman, which start their week in Indianapolis on Wednesday and run through Saturday, while Group 2 includes the QBs, WRs and RBs; Group 3 includes the LBs and defensive linemen; and Group 4 the corners and safeties. Of course, not all players will do a full workout, as over the years many of the very top prospects have opted to wait until their own school’s pro day to run the 40 and participate in position drills.

The first day for each group involves registration and orientation, while the players undergo medical tests and get x-rays. The second day involves the weigh-in, along with more medical tests, as well as some psychological testing. On the third day, players meet the players association and undergo further pyschological testing; they also undergo strength testing. Finally on the fourth day players hit the field for physical skills' test and as well as positional drills. The physical tests include running the 40 - the gold standard for draft propsects - as well as the 3-cone drill, 20- and 60-yard shuttles, broad jump and vertical leap. And on each of the first three days players will be interviewed by individual teams. However, every team is limited to interviewing just 60 player and have to submit a list in advance. As well, each interview is limited to only 15 minutes. And in many ways the interviews take on added importance this year because so many of the top prospects including Auburn QB Cam Newton; defensive linemen Robert Quinn and Marvin Austin of North Carolina and Alabama's Marcel Dareus; and Georgia WR A.J. Green, among others had off-field issues this past season.

The on-field physical testing begins on Saturday when the offfensive linemen and TEs hit the field, while the offensive skill people work out on Sunday, followed by the defensive linemen and LBs on Monday and the DBs wrap things up on Tuesday. And while the combine used to be run with all the secrecy of a meeting of the national secrity agency, the event is now carried by the NFL Network with their in-depth coverage to start with the on-field workouts on Saturday. The NFL even permits limited media attendance at the workouts.

While the physical testing gets most of the press, the heart-and-soul of the combine, though, are the medical exams. Indeed, the combine came about in the early 1980s to centralize the medical tests so players wouldn't have to undergo the same procedure for 32 different teams. In fact, every NFL team will have their entire medical and training staffs in Indianapolis going over the medical history, X-rays and MRI results of the prospects. As well, players who have had a surgery in college or high school will be asked to go for additional tests. And players with serious medical concerns may be recalled in early April for further tests.

Road to the draft runs thru Indy… There is also no question that the scouting combine is a key aspect of the pre-draft process. Last year, for example, 84% of the 255 players selected at the 2010 draft participated in last February's scouting combine. In fact, players who attended the combine as a percentage of those actually drafted has been remarkably constant at around 85% over the past few years.

As well, almost all players taken in the early rounds of recent drafts have been combine inviteees, while the vast majority of drafted players who had not been invited to the combine have been chosen in the later rounds. In 2010, for example, every player taken in the first four rounds was at the combine, whereas over half of those drafted who did not get combine invites - 22 of 40 - was chosen in the 7th round, while 12 were taken in the 6th round and 6 were 5th rounders. Even in the late rounds, though, the majority of players selected at the 2010 draft were at the combine. Last year, 84% of those selected in the 5th round were at the combine, while 68% of those selected in the 6th round and 54% of 7th rounders were at the combine. For the record, the non-combine invitee taken the earliest at the 2009 draft was former Oregon CB Walter Thurmond who was selected 138th overall in the 5th round by Oakland. In fact, it was the second year in a row that Oakland, which selected former Ohio DB Mike Mitchell in the middle of the second round of the 2009 draft, was the first team to take a player not invited to the combine.

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