Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
Might there be examples of players thought to be lower tier who benefitted from positive combine performances?
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WR Drake London, ATL (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Faust
- Start date
Chaka
Footballguy
I'm not sure by your take but, are you suggesting no team is going to take the risk on London in the first round because he hasn't performed combine drills?
That my friend, and I think you know I consider you a friend, is the real fantasy.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
Good discussion. Could make for an interesting stand-alone topic about whether the combine / pro days are anachronisms.I'm not saying NFL teams should be okay with potential employees not performing arbitrary drills.
I'm saying the future employees shouldn't give a damn what NFL teams would prefer when asking them to assume yet another risk to their livelihood after spending 2, 3, 4 years already assuming that virtually uncompensated risk.
The combine and pro days happen because they have always happened. That is a terrible reason to continue any practice. Life demands constant evaluation and reevaluation. The combine is no different.
Do you support the new NIL rules in the NCAA? Or do you hate Capitalism?
Would be interesting to see how scouts & GMs feel about that aspect of the game. What they’re looking for, how they use the exercise to assess value.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
No. I am suggesting that in London’s specific case, that he’s still not running after a significant ankle injury could, and should be a red flag to teams.
You see his potential demonstration of recovery as a chance for him to get hurt as an all risk/no reward scenario. I see the opposite. We have a player who was never considered “fast” or “bursty” to begin with, coming back from a season ending injury yet expected to command 1st round draft capital.
and yes - you’re absolutely my friend and I
you very much. It’s just fun to argue with you about this stuff. 
rockaction
Footballguy
that’s my point. Plus, once they wind up starting or something in the NFL, people notice that they wouldn’t have had the relative chance but for going to smaller schools based on high school recruiting. The combine levels the playing field. It’s an overall good, IMO. I just think certain guys, IF I’m acting their agent, should skip most of it.
London might drop a bit in the draft, but not out of the first. Unless he runs a 4.7. Which, apparently he might.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
peripherally, he might be slow off the line (which his college film shows) which could be even more relevant because the one thing he does well might not work in the NFL.
that’s clearly a risk for him - and IMO, a reason he should be trying to prove people wrong.
Chaka
Footballguy
Did the combine improve Mitchell's stock? From UDFA to 6th round pick? Or do you think he wouldn't have made it to the league at all without the combine?
I'm not sure being a 6th round pick is a win. An argument can be made that being an UDFA able to have a say in your landing spot has more value at that point in the draft.
rockaction
Footballguy
without a pro day (there was no combine for the Chase/Harris class) he wouldn’t have been in the league. That’s likely true.
Miami's Charles Rambo had a great 2021 season, 79-1172-7, as a #1. He looked great, getting open, good hands. He has decent size at 6'1" 177 lbs. But he's not a track guy and did a 4.57 40. That's a loss of a big signing bonus, as he was projected to go as high as round 4-5, but now is borderline draftable.
Yes, no reason for London to run if he's a guaranteed 1st rounder. He's not a speedster, but has good moves for a big guy.
Chaka
Footballguy
You don't think his film was on the radar of NFL teams? And, even if it were they wouldn't have been enough to make him an UDFA?
Not sure I buy that personally but, maybe I guess.
I think, with the budgets teams allocate to player acquisition at least 1 of 32 teams, and all it takes is one, would have turned over the rock to find him.
rockaction
Footballguy
I do. That’s why he got a probably got a pro day.
And your point is taken. It’s just that he was helped by the process.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
I mean, isn’t that exactly why pro teams would want to work out players? This anecdote seems like perfect validation that the combine / pro days are worthwhile for teams.
rockaction
Footballguy
I think the argument is not an argument whereby the league doesn't benefit, the argument is that the arrangement doesn't benefit every player. Some guys shouldn't run. Of course the league wants to know. That's why these guys don't want to risk it. They'd rather put up their top three status on film.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
Yes, but the tail doesn’t wag the dog.
I see it as a pretty clear downgrade when a player refuses to participate within the framework the league has put together for evaluation in most circumstances.
Sure, there are outliers with elite prospects where their stock will be unaffected, but in the case of London, (and vague attempt to keep this on topic) that he suffered a significant season-ending injury to his ankle, failing to show that he can still jump, or that his sluggishness / lack of burst are exaggerated would seem to only hurt him in the draft.
I guess if teams are satisfied that he’s a big bodied WR who will have success in the short-to-intermediate game, maybe they’ll take it on faith that his ankle is no longer an issue.
With millions of dollars on the line, I’d be a little less reckless if I’m an NFL team. If I’m a GM who’s livelihood depends on due diligence, I’d be pretty perturbed if this becomes the trend as opposed to an outlier. And again, *especially* with a player coming off injury.
rockaction
Footballguy
Sure. Not be terse, but I agree with you.
It's just that he, in particular, shouldn't have tested with his own self-interest in mind. He doesn't have to. Because somebody isn't going to think like you. They'll take him based on medicals and prior experience with the injury. That's all.
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"performing" is what the games are forWeird narrative. Pretty much every NFL GM wants to see players perform prior to drafting them, especially coming off injury. That doesn’t mean they are “dinosaurs “.
I’m far more interested in the response from the person I asked the question of, thanks.
a high end player prancing around in his underwear is a media event which should add little to a team's evaluation, if they have good evaluator
if a team is relying on the underwear olympics, they are doomed anyway
only the teams with top notch talent evaluators
the ones still reading Mel Kiper would be the ones to miss him
rockaction
Footballguy
Plenty of teams have good evaluators that use the combine. This is just untrue. I'm not saying the combine is the be-all end-all of evaluations, but if you think leveling the playing field and having athletic testing is a waste of time, 32 teams disagree with you.
rockaction
Footballguy
Seems a little drastic to me to claim that.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
Mel Kuiper is for shmoes like us.
NFL teams have infinitely better scouts and talent evaluators. In theory. lol
I mean. Ryan Leaf did get drafted. Just not where Mel wanted him.
rockaction
Footballguy
Mel Kiper?
What a niche!
What a niche!
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
I wouldn't be worried about London's ankle as an owner, if the docs clear him. London must know his 40 time, and knows it won't help him. If he "falls" to Mahomes , Allen, or Rodgers from 1.22 to 1.30, that's 5 draft picks, that might be good long-term. His current draft range is 10-20, with little chance of being higher.
FWIW, Chris Simms has him as WR #5, and he values athleticism, and the ability to make big plays. So, even though London won't blow by people, the film shows good routes, good hands, and elite ability to make contested catches, using size and ball-tracking skills. London can plant his foot to get enough separation per Simms. I saw some nice double moves on film. I think he would be a very good #2 compliment, ala Landry, but bigger, with lots of red-zone and move the chain value.
This reminds me of Willis McGahee's gruesome knee injury in the Fiesta Bowl. His policy covered him for about $2.5 million if he nevered play in the NFL. He didn't cash in the policy, Drew Rosenhaus did great as an agent, and Buffalo drafted him at 1.23, based on what the docs said. And he missed his entire rookie season. He was a physical freak, top 5 before the injury, but probably a step slower, as this was about 20 years ago, I guess ortho surgery is even better now. He made $35 million as a pro, a lot more than the $2.5 the insurance policy would've paid.
FWIW, Chris Simms has him as WR #5, and he values athleticism, and the ability to make big plays. So, even though London won't blow by people, the film shows good routes, good hands, and elite ability to make contested catches, using size and ball-tracking skills. London can plant his foot to get enough separation per Simms. I saw some nice double moves on film. I think he would be a very good #2 compliment, ala Landry, but bigger, with lots of red-zone and move the chain value.
This reminds me of Willis McGahee's gruesome knee injury in the Fiesta Bowl. His policy covered him for about $2.5 million if he nevered play in the NFL. He didn't cash in the policy, Drew Rosenhaus did great as an agent, and Buffalo drafted him at 1.23, based on what the docs said. And he missed his entire rookie season. He was a physical freak, top 5 before the injury, but probably a step slower, as this was about 20 years ago, I guess ortho surgery is even better now. He made $35 million as a pro, a lot more than the $2.5 the insurance policy would've paid.
rockaction
Footballguy
I remember what he looked like before injury and then after. Interesting career. Could have been an all-time kind of guy, but that's the story of NFL running backs.
Chaka
Footballguy
It has some value to the 32 teams but has proven to be a limited differentiator in evaluating the quality of a football player. If there were some magical ratio of 40:3-cone:bench press that properly slotted players then so many first round picks wouldn't bust.
The bigger reason for the combine is the 32 teams successfully monetized it into a multi-day fan and media event that prints them money during the off-season. It wouldn't go away entirely if it wasn't monetized but it would hold significantly less importance.
Chaka
Footballguy
Maybe not but if that were entirely true why don't they administer the Wonderlic anymore?
The prospects, and more importantly their agents, do have some power. They got the combine to change the planned structure of this season, there is no reason they can't get themselves more protections.
massraider
Footballguy
I wouldn't touch him in the 1st.
If he was the consensus #1, OK. But he's not.
If he was the consensus #1, OK. But he's not.
massraider
Footballguy
No one is saying that. This opinion is assigned to anyone who admits physical prowess matters. It is assigned to the 'watch the film' crew who dug up this argument from 1995.
Countdown to Jerry Rice/Anquan Boldin hot take in 5...4...3.....
massraider
Footballguy
Sweet, what were his vertical and short shuttle numbers?
Edit:
No 40, no vertical, no broad, no shuttle drills.
:REDFLAG:
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Chaka
Footballguy
I've seen Mike Evans & Brandon Marshall which I think is bizarre.
Personally I think Keyshawn Johnson seems like a reasonable comparison. 6'4", 211, not a burner, no combine data.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
I struggle with this narrative.Chaka said:
yes, the NFL has monetized the combine, as the NFL has monetized everything. They have a network, and that network needs content. so they show the combine, sell commercials, etc.
But it’s a false conclusion (and an incredibly cynical one at that) to assert that the combine exists primarily for that monetization, and not as a tool that NFL teams have used productively since 1982. It wasn’t even televised until 2011.
Measuring an athlete’s abilities at drills can be hugely beneficial to team. It puts all players testing on a level playing field, as opposed to college stats / film where they’re matched against huge variance in competition.
Of course there will be some missed talent at the combine, players that either test well & go on to mediocrity, or players who slip through the testing cracks & end up being better players on the field than in the underwear Olympics, but the majority of results provide invaluable data for teams to comb over in preparation for selecting players. And ok, maybe 1 in 1000 players suffers a catastrophic injury doing it. Same goes for other fluke things like car accidents, plane crashes, paper cuts, etc.
And of course, like all data, it is only as valuable as the front office folks on the team who are evaluating that data. But just because a team sucks at evaluating data doesn’t mean the data is bad, or not useful.
I reject the premise that the combine is an anachronism. The Wonderlick was retired because it was deemed less than neutral, IIRC. The controversy was with regard to assumptions built in to the test that applied to certain demographics, and perhaps not others. For example, racial & class bias that might cause a test-taker to score poorly. And hey, if a coach wants to know what a player’s football IQ or EIQ is, then that’s what player interviews are for.
This is all well past the London topic, but back on topic, IMO the absence of data about London only serves to confirm the worst fears about him. The logic goes, if he could jump high, or run fast, why wouldn’t he prove that with the universal measurements he knows teams want to see?
Baffling.
Whether this causes London to fall a few picks or a round is something we’ll find out in the not-too-distant future, it’ll be interesting to follow how he does in the NFL.
I’m not Hatey McHaterson. It’s just an interesting situation.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
Impossible to know without knowing whether he can run fast, has good off the line burst, or whether he can still leap. Chances are good that he can still jump, but otherwise
Chaka
Footballguy
There are more than some busts in the draft, there are constant busts all up and down every single round.
The combine is a moderately useful tool that probably provides just as much cover to GMs for bad decisions as it helps them select the right player.
Most, if not all, players should not be expected to perform, for free and unprotected, in an arbitrary exercise that is, at best a minor supplement to what they have already put on tape.
The combine is a moderately useful tool that probably provides just as much cover to GMs for bad decisions as it helps them select the right player.
Most, if not all, players should not be expected to perform, for free and unprotected, in an arbitrary exercise that is, at best a minor supplement to what they have already put on tape.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
But tape Isn’t a level playing field. Level of competition skews it one way or the other.
And they aren’t performing for free. They are literally auditioning for a multi-million dollar contract. Some would argue that this is the most important audition of their career - which, to date, they’ve largely played for free and unprotected since peewee league football, HS, & college.
another slacker sure to be passed over by the astute teams
https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/04/18/evan-neal-declined-to-run-the-40-says-he-went-to-alabama-to-put-it-on-tape/
Neal declined to run the 40-yard dash or do several of the other timed workouts that NFL scouts ask of players at the Combine and their Pro Day, and he says there’s no need: His abilities are right there on his college tape.
“That’s what you go to college for: to put it on tape,” Neal said, via the Tuscaloosa News. “The NFL is going to watch it, and that’s what they judge you based on. The tape.”
https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/04/18/evan-neal-declined-to-run-the-40-says-he-went-to-alabama-to-put-it-on-tape/
Neal declined to run the 40-yard dash or do several of the other timed workouts that NFL scouts ask of players at the Combine and their Pro Day, and he says there’s no need: His abilities are right there on his college tape.
“That’s what you go to college for: to put it on tape,” Neal said, via the Tuscaloosa News. “The NFL is going to watch it, and that’s what they judge you based on. The tape.”
so how does running around in your underwear prove that you can play and produce against better competition"?
not seeing how this "levels the playing field"
only the actual playing field does this
Faust
MVP
https://twitter.com/pff_college/status/1514364776113217543?s=21PFF Draft @PFF_College
Drake London: generational
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
it doesn’t. I never said it did.
I said it removes the variables.
Field conditions, caliber of opponent, weather, etc.
Obviously teams look at film of the players. It’s not an either/or. But to see if a player is running fast, for example, or just looks fast against a slow defender, running a 40 yard dash is a level playing field for every player and I can’t believe I have to actually explain this.
That’s just completely incorrect.
habsfan
Footballguy
I'm confused. In your opinion this guy should be passed over because he declines to "run around in his underwear" yet a few posts later you say doing that means nothing. Which is it?
massraider
Footballguy
I think this is the entire crux of the argument. Some believe this bolded statement to be true and others believe it is a very minor additional piece of information. It probably falls somewhere in between.
London not running gives the impression he has something to hide. Now it comes to the scouting and film review departments to determine if that matters or not. Teams can also extrapolate speed times for players London faced to see if he was better/worse etc while on the field. There are ways to "level" the playing field without everyone participating in a staged race that has very little to do with actual football skills.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
yes, but as I said above, it’s not an either/or, as some want to assert.
it’s a “both”.
1. Watch the film.
2. Also watch the metrics from a neutral testing format.
3. Evaluate all data.
favoring one over the other to the point of being myopic would be incredibly short-sighted with multi-million dollar & sometimes job-saving decisions on the line.
I partly agree, in a general sense.
The significant flaw here is with regard to a player coming off of a season-ending injury. There’s simply no way to extrapolate from film whether he’s fully recovered from that injury, or “back to what he was” by looking at past game film.
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I have no issue with someone favoring film over the metrics from non game pure athletic tests because the game of football has a lot more skill than just straight athleticism. It's important but not really that critical. It's more like a confirmation piece than a foundation piece.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
And that’s ok. Never said it wasn’t.
And similarly, if an evaluator favors combine metrics over game film, that’s also ok.
Or 50/50, 60/40, 70/30, 80/20, 90/10 in whatever direction, also ok.
My points in here have been in response to @Chaka’s position that the combine can be essentially eliminated in favor of game film.
You didn’t address the “player coming off season-ending injury” point though.
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habsfan
Footballguy
I would think players who opt out of these tests, especially the ones who are dismissive / arrogant about it, give teams even more to think about. You are inking these guys to millions of dollars and every "data point" is potentially significant.
