1 Man’s Opinion

1-Man’s Opinion on Sports-Friday “The NFL Draft Combine-Information Overload”

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“NFL-Combine-Information Overload”

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What’s wrong with this player?

What about that deficiency?

We must find out what he cannot do well?

Is there a character flaw?

Shat is the injury history?

It’s what they are all searching for at Lucas Oil Field between now and Monday.

They’re all here in Indianapolis….General Managers, every coach-every scout-team doctors.

It is 5-day;meat market as NFL teams evaluate some 362-potential draft candidates, leading into the April draft.

It’s about information to the minute detail. It’s more than just a workout. It’s probing questions about their backgournd. A look at what they did on the field, off the field, sometimes even in the classroom.

It’s about family, friends, background.too.

Organizations have to find out how players are ‘wired’.

They get to watch them do bench presses…..run 40-yard dashes….shuttle and cone drills….take part in actual workouts and passing and running drills….grade the Wunderlic test, conduct short sit down interviews.

It is step one of face-to-face evaluations. Then come the on-campus Pro Days workouts with select draft prospects. And maybe even visits, though no workouts, at an NFL facility.

You understand the amount of money that goes to top draft picks. You understand the critical needs teams have that must be filled, with the best possible talent.

But sometimes you wonder if teams get paralysis by analysis, putting more emphasis on the NFL combine and a single Pro day workout, than the 3-years of record setting passing from USC’s Sam Darnold.

You wonder if they watch all the video, and know what Saquon Barkley went thru as Penn State came out of the horrors of the Joe Paderno-Jerry Sandusky scandal.

You guess whether they value the individual talent that Rashaad Penny is, even if he played in the off-the-radar Mountain West Conference with the Aztecs.

There are a lot of ‘can’tt miss’ prospects at the top of the draft board,the JJ Watt’s of the world.

But it is not a perfect science either, as witnessed by the fact Tom Brady was a 6th round draft pick out of Michigan, and Jerry Rice took his first steps towards stardom at tiny Mississippi Valley State.

And you remain stunned, after all the video they can watch, and then the combine and the workouts, how a club could make a mistake that sets them back forever..

The highway of failed very high first round draft picks litter the roads everywhere.

When these NFL clubs are done with the data they have access too, we watched them take people like J’Marcus Russell…..running back Trent Richardson….Robert Griffin III and Ryan Leaf and so many more.

The NFL Combine….information overload…the need to know….and yet mistakes still get made every year.

The NFL wants you to believe this is a perfect science in scouting and evaluating. Sometimes it seems ‘paralysis by analysis’.

Perfect talents on the board? You bet. Plenty of mistake picks too. Guaranteed.

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