Now that the combine is almost over people will look at the numbers

[Steely Dan]

IMO, the combine is overrated because of numbers. The interviews and doctors checkups are very important, but the drills not so much. Forty times are the biggest joke of the combine. If player A runs a 4.5 forty and player B runs a 4.25 forty that means that (approx.) at the end of eighty yards Player A will be a half second behind player B. How often do guys run straight line for 80 yards on a football field during a game? That half second IMO, is meaningless but it can mean the difference of a million dollars on a rookie contract.

 

The other reason I hate forty times is that they don't gauge football speed. Some guys can turn on the jets during a game more easily than they can on a track. The forty times at the combine, as well as all other drills, are run in shorts and not in football gear. How that translates to guys in pads on the field is a little silly to even try and figure out.

 

While the importance given by some to forty times of WR, CB, RB, LB and FB's is fairly easy to understand it is totally useless, IMO for DL, OL and QB's. DL and OL and QB's rarely run forty yards at one time in a game. The best QB's seem, to me, to be the guys who can stand in the pocket and make quick decisions with great accuracy. I could give a crap if he runs a 5.6 forty.

 

Here are some articles about 40 times;

 

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/351014-...ated-draft-tool

 

For this upcoming draft, look at DE/OLB prospect Brandon Graham. Before I start, I think Graham will make a great player in the league. He has been talked about being picked anywhere from 25th to the early second round.

 

When interviewed, Graham said he can run a 4.5* forty. Now people are talking about him going top 10 if he indeed can run that fast.

 

How does that change anything? Show me the lateral movement speed he has, not vertical speed. Watch the game film, and see how he was the hardest working player for four years while at Michigan, and had a nonstop motor. Don't worry about how fast he can run.

 

Sure, we were awed at Chris Johnsons' 4.24, and it does show on the field, when he has an open lane. If he did the three cone drill, I would of bet he would produce the fastest time of any running back. His acceleration is what gives him his burst to get to the open field.

 

*Graham actually ran a 4.74 but the point is the same.

 

http://blog.nola.com/saintsbeat/2009/03/40...a_waste_of.html

 

Jabari Greer was a standout track athlete and football player at the University of Tennessee. Back in 2004, he ran a time of 4.37 seconds in the 40 on his pro day but clocked a sub-par time of 4.5 at the combine.

 

Two months later he failed to hear his name called on draft weekend and had to settle for free-agent rookie contract with the Buffalo Bills.

 

__________________________

 

In 2003, the Arizona Cardinals selected Penn State wide receiver Bryant Johnston with the 17th pick of the first round after watching him run a 4.37 40 at his pro day. Thirty-six picks later, with the No. 54 pick of the second round, they took Anquan Boldin, a wide receiver from Florida State, who clocked a pedestrian time of 4.71.

 

Johnson signed a five-year contract that averaged $1.26 million a season. Boldin's four-year deal averaged about half of that annually.

 

Yet Johnson never nailed down a full-time starting job in Arizona and is now on his third team in three years.

 

Boldin, meanwhile, went on to win NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year honors after catching 101 passes for 1,377 yards and is a three-time Pro Bowler.

 

That same year, Terrell Suggs was considered a consensus top 5 pick after setting an NCAA record with 44 career sacks at Arizona State. He slipped to No. 10, though, when he recorded a 40 time of 4.81 at the combine.

 

Suggs went on to win the Defensive Rookie of the Year award and is also a three-time Pro Bowler.

 

Enough about the forty. Why should I care if a guy can bench press 225 pounds 45 times? Why should I care about his 3 cone drill, or 20 yard shuttle? I can see how he translates those skills onto a football field by watching college tape. The vertical has some interest to me. Particularly for WR's and CB's but being able to see if a guy can out jump his competition can also be found on college films. The Wonderlic means nothing to me unless a guy falls below approx. 20 or goes above approx. 35.

 

So when I read that Mitch Petrus tied Lief Larsen's bench press record I could care less. A guy who presses ten times less than Petrus but is better able to use his strength against an opponent through solid technique is more valuable to me.

 

The other thing that I think the drills at the combine are good for is judging an athletes competitiveness, nerves under pressure and ability to follow directions. How much do they care about doing their best? Do they want to be #1 or are they just going through the motions? So, IMO there is some good to the combine but don't look at a guy who's impressive in the drills and think that those stats will any way translate to the football field.

 

Give me the college football studs, not the combine studs.

[....lybob]

The combine is useful if you use it right- basically never upgrade a guy who's tape you don't like- you use it to find separation on guys you have rated very closely and to sometimes to disqualify players who may have had great college careers. Occasionally one of these disqualified players will make good in the NFL and it's a great story when it happens but more often the slow or undersized find they can't compete in the NFL.

[DarthICE]

Nix eluded to the fact he doesn't upgrade or downgrade based on the draft. It is just a place to finally meet and greet these kids and get final physicals on them. That is the right way to approach the combine.

 

Thank God we finally have Nix

[Steely Dan]

Here's an article on Dez Bryant;

 

Bryant is expected to be a first-round pick in April. Some draftniks have predicted that he will go in the top 10, although the consensus appears to be the top 15. Whoever takes him does so at their own peril.

 

“I wouldn’t draft that kid unless I had someone to wake him up in the morning to get to meetings, someone to wake him up for practice and someone to wake him up for games,” one source said.

 

A second source said Bryant’s reputation was earned because he was consistently late to team activities. That included showing up late for games.

 

“We’re not just talking about being a little late for warmups, but like being late for the actual game,” a source said with a chuckle. “When you start to hear some of the stories of there, you go, ‘He did what?’ ”

 

I believe when coaches refer to football character it's that kind of stuff they're referring to.

[Steely Dan]

http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/article/20...erwear-olympics

 

 

The Underwear Olympics process has little or no relevance to the sport of football. As we've heard time and again over the years, a football player needs to be able to run 40 yards in a straight line only on one of two occasions -- when something very good has happened, and when something very bad has happened.

 

And yet scouts continue to obsess over the Underwear Olympics, which provide tangible data regarding a transition process from college football to pro football that will be driven largely by intangibles like heart, desire, and the ability to take repeated shots to the chops from a grown man.

 

Because there's no way to know whether a player who played well among college-caliber players will be able to thrive when competing against the best of the best that more than 120 universities had to offer over the course of a decade or longer, NFL teams rely on the Underwear Olympics to provide superficial justification for decisions that ultimately are made at a far more visceral level. Seasoned coaches and scouts develop a sense for separating the skilled players who genuinely love football from the guys who are pretending to love it in order to get paid, but if a mistake is made based on a hunch that isn't supported by hard evidence, seasoned coaches and scouts quickly become unemployed seasoned coaches and scouts.

[Acantha]

IMO, the combine is overrated because of numbers. The interviews and doctors checkups are very important, but the drills not so much. Forty times are the biggest joke of the combine. If player A runs a 4.5 forty and player B runs a 4.25 forty that means that (approx.) at the end of eighty yards Player A will be a half second behind player B. How often do guys run straight line for 80 yards on a football field during a game? That half second IMO, is meaningless but it can mean the difference of a million dollars on a rookie contract.

 

The other reason I hate forty times is that they don't gauge football speed. Some guys can turn on the jets during a game more easily than they can on a track. The forty times at the combine, as well as all other drills, are run in shorts and not in football gear. How that translates to guys in pads on the field is a little silly to even try and figure out.

 

While the importance given by some to forty times of WR, CB, RB, LB and FB's is fairly easy to understand it is totally useless, IMO for DL, OL and QB's. DL and OL and QB's rarely run forty yards at one time in a game. The best QB's seem, to me, to be the guys who can stand in the pocket and make quick decisions with great accuracy. I could give a crap if he runs a 5.6 forty.

 

Here are some articles about 40 times;

 

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/351014-...ated-draft-tool

 

For this upcoming draft, look at DE/OLB prospect Brandon Graham. Before I start, I think Graham will make a great player in the league. He has been talked about being picked anywhere from 25th to the early second round.

 

When interviewed, Graham said he can run a 4.5* forty. Now people are talking about him going top 10 if he indeed can run that fast.

 

How does that change anything? Show me the lateral movement speed he has, not vertical speed. Watch the game film, and see how he was the hardest working player for four years while at Michigan, and had a nonstop motor. Don't worry about how fast he can run.

 

Sure, we were awed at Chris Johnsons' 4.24, and it does show on the field, when he has an open lane. If he did the three cone drill, I would of bet he would produce the fastest time of any running back. His acceleration is what gives him his burst to get to the open field.

 

*Graham actually ran a 4.74 but the point is the same.

 

http://blog.nola.com/saintsbeat/2009/03/40...a_waste_of.html

 

Jabari Greer was a standout track athlete and football player at the University of Tennessee. Back in 2004, he ran a time of 4.37 seconds in the 40 on his pro day but clocked a sub-par time of 4.5 at the combine.

 

Two months later he failed to hear his name called on draft weekend and had to settle for free-agent rookie contract with the Buffalo Bills.

 

__________________________

 

In 2003, the Arizona Cardinals selected Penn State wide receiver Bryant Johnston with the 17th pick of the first round after watching him run a 4.37 40 at his pro day. Thirty-six picks later, with the No. 54 pick of the second round, they took Anquan Boldin, a wide receiver from Florida State, who clocked a pedestrian time of 4.71.

 

Johnson signed a five-year contract that averaged $1.26 million a season. Boldin's four-year deal averaged about half of that annually.

 

Yet Johnson never nailed down a full-time starting job in Arizona and is now on his third team in three years.

 

Boldin, meanwhile, went on to win NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year honors after catching 101 passes for 1,377 yards and is a three-time Pro Bowler.

 

That same year, Terrell Suggs was considered a consensus top 5 pick after setting an NCAA record with 44 career sacks at Arizona State. He slipped to No. 10, though, when he recorded a 40 time of 4.81 at the combine.

 

Suggs went on to win the Defensive Rookie of the Year award and is also a three-time Pro Bowler.

 

Enough about the forty. Why should I care if a guy can bench press 225 pounds 45 times? Why should I care about his 3 cone drill, or 20 yard shuttle? I can see how he translates those skills onto a football field by watching college tape. The vertical has some interest to me. Particularly for WR's and CB's but being able to see if a guy can out jump his competition can also be found on college films. The Wonderlic means nothing to me unless a guy falls below approx. 20 or goes above approx. 35.

 

So when I read that Mitch Petrus tied Lief Larsen's bench press record I could care less. A guy who presses ten times less than Petrus but is better able to use his strength against an opponent through solid technique is more valuable to me.

 

The other thing that I think the drills at the combine are good for is judging an athletes competitiveness, nerves under pressure and ability to follow directions. How much do they care about doing their best? Do they want to be #1 or are they just going through the motions? So, IMO there is some good to the combine but don't look at a guy who's impressive in the drills and think that those stats will any way translate to the football field.

 

Give me the college football studs, not the combine studs.

This whole long post, yet you made a decision about a player based on a picture.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

One story I like to tell at this time of year is how the renowned coach, Don Coryell would make his players race in helmets, shoulder pads, and cleats while carrying a football.

 

He wanted to know who had the best football speed.

 

One year the team had two very fast wide receivers, Charlie Joyner and Wes Chandler.

 

But the fastest players on the team were 230 pound running back Chuck Muncie followed by 250 pound tight end Kellen Winslow.

 

Good original post btw, did you mention Jerry Rice's mediocre 40 time?

[evilbuffalobob]

A combine is a machine for sowing oats (and other crops).

[Steely Dan]

This whole long post, yet you made a decision about a player based on a picture.

 

If you read my posts in that thread you'll see it was based on more than just a picture and anyway a picture is worth a 1,000 words. Anyone can look at that and see the guy doesn't take conditioning seriously. JMO

 

 

One story I like to tell at this time of year is how the renowned coach, Don Coryell would make his players race in helmets, shoulder pads, and cleats while carrying a football.

 

He wanted to know who had the best football speed.

 

One year the team had two very fast wide receivers, Charlie Joyner and Wes Chandler.

 

But the fastest players on the team were 230 pound running back Chuck Muncie followed by 250 pound tight end Kellen Winslow.

 

Good original post btw, did you mention Jerry Rice's mediocre 40 time?

 

Thanks,

 

Rice is mentioned in one of the articles I linked. They point out that in hindsight he should have been the #1 pick.

[Steely Dan]

Here's something like what I'm talking about;

 

4. Lack of speed kills

Several scouts believe that USC safety Taylor Mays is more of a weakside linebacker than a true free safety. The scouts are concerned about his closing speed while working the secondary’s center field. It is the main reason why Mays has dropped out of the top 10 on every team’s draft boards. On the flip side, everyone is going gaga over Maryland offensive tackle Bruce Campbell, who officially ran a 4.85 40-yard dash and benched 215 pounds 34 times. He is a freak at 6-6, 314 pounds, but he wasn’t even first-team all-conference. Sure, coaches can teach a player how to block, but a guy’s playing history is more important than Campbell’s combine numbers. He reminds me of Mike Schad, a guy who also looked great in shorts that the Rams picked in 1986 with the 23rd overall pick. He busted out as a tackle.

[Cynical]

If you read my posts in that thread you'll see it was based on more than just a picture and anyway a picture is worth a 1,000 words. Anyone can look at that and see the guy doesn't take conditioning seriously. JMO

 

You claim a picture is worth a "thousand words", but pictures are like stats.

They only represent a point in time, and can be misleading, especially when used by themselves or with bad supporting data.

 

Did that picture tell you that fat, lazy bastard can dunk a basketball? Even when he was heavier than he was in the picture?

 

But if you are going to throw around cliches, here's one:

 

Don't judge a book by it's cover.