National Football League Draft Day will soon be here, and the NFL’s Scouting Combines are going on, but there are some things that I do not understand about the combines. I have watched a lot of football in my life, and there are drills and tests that are conducted at the combines that don’t seem to make sense to me, because I never seem to have seen those particular skills in actual games.
The standing broad jump will tell the decision makers how athletic a player is, but I have never seen a player at any position in a football game have to stand in one place and suddenly jump as far forward as they can. The vertical jump is about the same as the broad jump. Knowing how high a wide receiver or a defensive back can jump is important, but how important is it for an offensive lineman or for a quarterback to jump straight up in the air as high as they can?
I’ve never seen a quarterback need to move 225 pounds off of his chest numerous times, but leg press drills might tell me how strong a quarterback’s lower body is, which would be useful when in the grasp of a defender who is trying to sack a quarterback. The 40-yard dash tells me about top speed, but a 80-100 yard dash in pads will tell me if a player can hold their speed over a long distance or has the stamina to run the length of the field, as special teams players are often asked to do. As we saw in Super Bowl XXVII, if Leon Lett had been able to maintain his speed over a longer distance, he might not have been caught from behind by Don BeeBe.
I understand why the NFL does what it does; because it can and because I have not been hired to make decisions to the contrary. I just don’t understand how or why some of the combine drills are important to playing football. If they were performed in pads, then maybe they would give, in my opinion, a better assessment of the players’ abilities.
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