Tuesday, February 28th, 2006...8:02 am by Lee Gibbons
Quick Hitter: NFL Combine
The NFL combine was this past weekend. Every year it seems that this event gets more and more attention. This year the NFL Network broadcast 5 hours live on both Saturday and Sunday. My question is who the heck is watching this?
I’m sure the coverage is spruced up with prospect profiles, interviews and press conferences, but how exciting can this possibly be?  It a bunch of guys running 40 yards and lifting some weights. 90% of these players won’t make an impact in the NFL, yet some fan will salivate over Joe Schmo who ran a 4.25 in a 40-yard dash. It’s gotten to the point where the top prospects don’t even participate. They wait for their school’s pro day, so they can run on a familiar turf.
What really baffles is the obsession with 40 times. A receiver who runs 4.6 free-falls on draft boards, while a 4.3 guy gets bumped up. Over 40 yards, the difference of 0.3 seconds probably amounts to a quarter of a step. While that does make a small difference, it isn’t enough to justify picking some butter fingers receiver ahead of a player who can actually catch.
The physical aspects of the combine are good for two things: 1) seeing if some kid from small college state can complete with bigger name players and 2) as a tiebreaker between two prospects who are rated equally. Â Yet every year we see a “workout warrior” shoot up the draft list, and end up as a colossal bust.
Now the other side of the combine, the individual interviews teams have with players, can be very important. I don’t want the Redskins to pick some guy who states his life goal is to kill his grandma or something. These interviews can be deceiving however, as even the most dense guy can fake it for a 15 minute interview.
I’m just waiting for the announcement that the NFL network will be broadcasting the Wonderlic test sessions live next year. I’m sure someone would take a perverse pleasure in watching these superb athletes struggle to answer the simple questions. After the Vince Young fiasco this year, I figure it’s only a matter of time.
2 Comments
March 20th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
I agree about the overblown hype of a 40 yard dash time. When I look on websites and see obvious fake 40 times, I wonder who in there right mind would believe this stuff? I went to the NFL combine in 2004 to see my cousin Carlos Francis, who got drafted to Raiders in the third round. He was the only person at the combine that ran a sub 4.4 40 yard dash, and now its supposed to be average for all skill position players to run a 4.3. Well as a athlete, I will tell you that there isnt many people in this world that run a 4.3 on grass, NFL.com will tell you that. Besides, three pounds of pads and subtract the wind hitting you back at a combine most pros will run a 4.5; I’m not saying this because I’m slow, I run a 4.53 40 yard dash and I’m faster than almost all the athletes I play against.
December 4th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Hi everyone.
I have seen many different commercials for the NFL that showed a single player in action with a glow aroound him. I would like to do something similar to
this but I dont know if they mask frame by frame or if they use some other method to mask the player. The initial backgrounds were multicolored and complex
in most of the footage used so I they could not use a simple green key. Anyone know of how they do these effects?Thanks.
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