NFL Notebook: Is the Combine still useful?

Sunday, February 25, 2011
Posted: 10 a.m.

By Ray Didinger
CSNPhilly.com

Over the years, the NFL Scouting Combine has grown in notoriety. More than 300 media members are covering the current workouts in Indianapolis. It has grown in visibility. An estimated 5.2 million people watched at least part of last years combine coverage on the NFL Network and that number is expected to increase this year.

So the combine is getting bigger, but is it getting better? Is it getting more reliable in doing what it is created to do, that is, help the NFL teams identify the best prospects in the upcoming draft?

The answer: Not really.

If anything, it is getting harder to evaluate the test results because the athletesand more specifically, their agentsare now ahead of the testing process. They know exactly what drills the players will be asked to do. They know exactly what kind of questions they will be asked when they interview with the teams. They arrive fully-armed to ace the test.

The trouble is, most of it is specific to the combine. Players spend weeks at high-tech training centers working with track coaches and strength coaches to improve their 40-yard dash time and their bench press. They practice running the three-cone drill and 20-yard shuttle until they can do it with their eyes closed. So players are testing better than everbut what does it mean?

Does it mean they are better NFL prospects or does it mean they are better at beating the combine? Thats what the teams have to figure out. Combine that with the fact that many of the best prospects skip these workouts in favor of individual workouts back home and it leaves some coaches and scouts asking if this is all much ado about nothing.

Jets coach Rex Ryan last year at the combine made an interesting comment. Asked what he was looking for, Ryan replied: Im looking for good football players. In typical cut-to-the-chase fashion, Ryan identified both the value and the danger of the combine. You never can lose sight of the fact that once you get past all the cones and barbells, it still is about playing football.

Ryan knows because he inherited one of the biggest draft blunders of all-time: Vernon Gholston. At 6-3, 260 pounds, Gholston looked great in a T-shirt and shorts at the 2008 combine. When he ran the 40 in 4.5 seconds, jaws dropped. When he bench pressed 455 pounds, scouts drooled. When he did 37 reps with the 225-pound bar, he was the talk of Indianapolis. Some people were comparing him to Bruce Smith, Buffalos Hall of Fame defensive end.

The Jets made Gholston the sixth overall pick in the draft. The Ohio State product arrived in New York to great fanfare and fell flat on his face. Coach Eric Mangini tried Gholston at linebacker but that didnt work. When Ryan took over, he moved Gholston to end, but that didnt work either. By the end of last season Gholston was buried so deep on the Jets depth chart you needed a submarine to find him.

In three seasons, Gholston has zero sacks. Thats right, zero, as in none.

Ask scouts about it now, ask them what went wrong and they shake their heads. Many admit they would have drafted Gholston too, if given the chance. But others point out that Gholstons college career had a strange arc. He played only two seasons (he entered the draft as a junior) and while one of those seasons was very impressive (14 sacks), the other was basically a zero.

His effort was inconsistent. He disappeared for long stretches. One AFC scout recalled one play in particular when an LSU tight end who was 30 pounds lighter than Gholston drove him back into the end zone and turned him completely around. He looked like he was on roller skates, he said, referring to Gholston. It was embarrassing.

So with Gholston, you had a gifted athlete who can run fast and pump iron which made him an ideal candidate for MVP of the Scouting Combine, but a guy who was at best a high-risk pick as a football player. Thats how a Cant Miss becomes a colossal miss.

Ive always felt the best way to approach the combine is to use it as a tool to fill in the blanks on players. Time them, test them, watch them run the cones and do the shuttles. Meet with them, look them in the eye and get a feel for them. But dont let it outweigh what you see on their college game tapes. What you saw them do on the field still is the best barometer. Dont draft a player based on what you see in Indianapolis.

Cams the Man
One of the most talked about players at this years Scouting Combine is Auburn quarterback Cam Newton who won both the Heisman Trophy and the Maxwell Club Award as college player of the year.

There is a wide split of opinion on his pro potential and where he may go in the April draft. I expect him to be a top ten pick if only because seven of those ten teams are in need of quarterback help so someone will draft him. But there is some question about how well Newton will make the transition to the NFL.

The physical talent is obviously there. At 6-6 and 250 pounds, he has rare size and mobility. He certainly demonstrated his ability to win big games when he led Auburn to the national title this season. But remember Vince Young did the same thing at Texas and look at how his career crashed and burned in Tennessee.

There were already concerns about Newtons maturity and his ability to deal with issues off the field and he did not help himself this week when he told Sports Illustrateds Peter King: I see myself not only as a football player, but an entertainer and icon.

That quote will be a red flag for NFL teams. Teams will question his priorities and ask if he is really in this to win a Super Bowl or make movies and sell shoes.

Counting the days
The NFLs Collective Bargaining Agreement expires at midnight March 3, so the countdown to a potential lockout is now underway. Give Federal Mediator George Cohen credit for keeping the two sides at the table, but the owners and players still are too far apart to realistically expect a settlement this week.

The owners are absolutely determined to get a new deal which gives them a bigger share of the gross revenue. The current CBA gives the players almost 60 percent of the gross (minus the 1 billion the owners take off the top) and the owners want to roll that figure back. The players are asking: why should the current system be changed when, clearly, it is making everyone rich?

What you have to understand is this dispute isnt about the current 9 billion pie as much as it is the even bigger pie that waits down the road. The owners want to increase the regular season to 18 games, which will mean more money and even richer TV contacts. There is talk about more internet, more international games, more global revenue streams and so on which means the gross revenue will continue to grow.

Basically, the owners want to rewrite the rules so they are in position to get a bigger share of that projected windfall. It is all about business, in other words.

E-mail Ray Didinger at viewfromthehall@comcast.net