The Combine Fallacy
The NFL Scouting Combine began on Thursday. It is an annual ritual in which scouts, coaches, and team general managers come to Indianapolis to watch potential NFL players do a bunch of things that have almost nothing to do with football.
“Nothing to do with Football?!!!”, you say, “The 40 yard dash has everything to do with football. We need to see if the guys that we draft are fast!”
That statement might be true if you were Al Davis. But for the rest of the sane world, the 40 yard dash is a useless measure. How often does a football player run 40 yards? Not many. How often does an offensive lineman run 40 yards? Never.
Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at the season that just ended. During the 2009 regular season, Peyton Manning completed a total of 8 passes for 40 yards or more. That’s right, 8. Out of 571 pass attempts. That’s 1.4% of his passes. Drew Brees completed 11 passes for over 40 yards. Kurt Warner completed a whopping 3 passes for 40 yards or more.
We all know that Steelers offensive coordinator Bruce Arians is in love with the long pass, but even Ben Roethlisberger only completed 14 passes for 40 yards or more. That’s out of 506 pass attempts. Starting to get the picture? NFL players don’t run 40 yards.
A waste of time
Even kick returners and punt returners don’t break many returns for 40 yards. And when they do, is it ever in a straight line? Do they ever start from a track runners’ starting position? Nope.
How about the shuttle run? Does that drill emulate anything that you’ve ever seen in a football game? Didn’t think so.
Same with the vertical leap. When was the last time you saw a player jump straight up in the air from a standing position? What insight will we gain about Terrence Cody when we see that his vertical leap is an awe-inspiring 4 millimeters?
And I don’t even want to talk about how stupid the Wonderlic Test is. Click here to see a sample Wonderlic Test. Now tell me what the #$%*&@!# that has to do with football? What would you have done if your job had made you take that test before they hired you? Does the term “go postal” sound familiar?
Yet despite how silly the NFL Scouting Combine really is, it has become a made-for-TV event that is aired on NFL Network. People actually stay home from work so they can watch this crap.
Message boards all over the internet will be littered with discussions about how fast a certain receiver is, or how many times a certain linemen bench pressed 225 lbs.
I remember a couple of years ago the Steelers picked up a guy named Mike Kudla who did an amazing 45 reps on the bench press. Steelers fans on message boards were doing backflips over the guy. I remember several Steelers fans even predicting that Kudla was a sure Hall-of-Famer. Unfortunately, Kudla never played a regular season game in the NFL. It’s too bad the NFL doesn’t use a bench press competition to determine the winner of overtime games. If they did, Kudla would still be in the league.
I also remember Steelers fans tirelessly advocating that the Steelers select Jarron Gilbert with their first pick last year. Most of them had never actually seen him play. Not a single down. But what they had seen was a YouTube video of Gilbert jumping out of a swimming pool. Yeah, players do that all the time during the course of a game. In case you’re wondering, Gilbert started no games this season, made appearances in 4 games, and accumulated a total of 1 tackle. So much for jumping out of swimming pools.
It’s one thing when casual fans make the mistake of falling in love with workout wonders. But it’s a sin when NFL officials do it. That’s exactly what happened last year when the Oakland Raiders made Darrius Heyward-Bey the first receiver drafted. Heyward-Bey ran a blistering time in the 40 yard dash, and that was all Al Davis needed to see. However, if Davis had bothered to review actual game tape of Heyward-Bey, he would have noticed that he can’t catch. That’s a bit of a problem for a wide receiver………..even if he is fast.
Fortunately for Steelers fans, Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin don’t seem to fall into the trap of falling in love with workout wonders. They are very disciplined in their approach and seldom make early round draft mistakes.
I just wish they could say the same thing about their later round picks.
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I was flipping through the channels today and I thought I was the only person that thought that the combine is completely foolish. I didn’t really look in the history of players that were busts in the league after performing well, but I just wondered how this could be valued more than actual game tape.
1Exact Benny. What difference does it make how fast a guy can run or how strong he is if he looks terrible on tape? But some people fall in love with a player’s “potential”.
The problem is that the scouts have been watching these guys play all year long. They have notebooks full of comments about the players. But the coaches and GMs are often seeing the players for the first time at the Combine. Unfortunately, they have the authority to overrule the scouts.
2Maybe Tomlin should start looking at combine. Out of 24 picks since he has been coach I see about 3.5 having significant impact. AND one of those is a punter picked in the 4th Rnd.
I really like Suppy but if you pick a punter in the 4th he better have a bionic leg.
Watch for Casey to report to camp 25lbs heavy.
However, I agree combine is stupid and I hope we don’t spend time discussing news out of the combine (other than it being stupid of course)
3Tony,
We definitely won’t be talking about the Combine any more. I am about to start a series on the Steelers positional needs and draft options.
Of course, feel free to say that the Combine is stupid anytime.
4The 40 yard dash. Is used to see how powerful a Defensive linemans explosion is, scouts will only look at the first 10 yards. A shuttle run is used to measure how easily a player can drop their hips and change directions. The wonderlic is used to test a players ability to learn a complex playbook, by checking their ability to look for patterns and such things. The Vertical jump, no real point in that. Admittedly when you draft a player it’s normally 20% combine and 80% tape.
5The combine is stupid, anytime.
6Admit it. You have to give the NFL credit. The fact that we are talking about the N-F-L Combine in March already makes it a marketing success. The Combine aside, Tony brings up a valid point. The Steelers have not fared well with draft picks after Round 1 for some time. We all know that it takes 3 years to judge a draft AND that it is usually the picks in rounds 3-6 that determine how well you do. (That assumes that at least either your 1st or 2nd rnd picks is a stud.)It is fair to question the process underway to evaluate talent in the Steeler organization. I’ve suggested earlier that it might not be a bad idea for the Steelers to hire some additional consultants (a Floyd Reese type)to provide input (not make decisions)on talent. When you take a look at our roster, we need to add some mid-round talent that can can be special teams contributors today and starters w/in the next few years.
7spot on John#21
8I love the combine. Seriously!
As Mike Mayock put it, the combine can either show you what you already know, or make you go back and review game tape. If a guy looks slow on tape, and then runs a 4.3, you go back and check the tape again. Game film is obviously the most important measure, just to make sure that you don’t end up with Vernon Gholston.
9As far as Tomlin’s 1st round picks, you can’t really judge those immediately. Some guys just need practice. Usually the 3rd year is the year of judgement. We could now say that L. Timmons was a decent pick, but didn’t quite live up to expectations. Mendy will prove his worth next year, and Ziggy after that. Him more so, because DL player always have a rougher transition.
10Dan,
I think what John and I are saying about the draft is that number one picks should and better contribute over a couple of years. But it is the other rounds that are the concern.
On your combine comment: There is track speed and there is football speed. They are two different things I believe.
Donald,
I haveoften thought about starting my own blog. You say there is alot to it and it is difficult. Why do you say that? enlighten me some. thanks
11Tony,
It takes a lot of time. I work a job, and have to work this around my REAL work.
Also, it costs money to establish a blog unless you use a free format like Blogger, but that is pretty limiting.
Than finally, you have to build an audience. The old saying “if you build it they will come” doesn’t really work. There are 50 billion blogs out there. 30 billion of them are Steelers blogs. How do you stand out from the crowd? That is always the key.
If you want to write and article, let me know. I’ll give you a vehicle to see how difficult it really is. I am always open to contributions from regular readers who have shown their knowledge like you, or either John. In fact, John has written an article before, and he can tell you that it is harder than it looks. But he did well, and he has an open invitation to write an article anytime he wants.
12Donald,
Thanks. Hope it didn’t sound like I thought it was easy. I was just asking for some insight from someone doing well at it. (even though I disagree with you at times
)
Sure, I would like to give it a shot sometime in the future. Thanks for the invite.
Oh, the combine is stupid
13No problem, Tony. I understand your curiosity.
Think of a topic and e-mail me what you’d like to write about. Here are a few topics that I’ve been thinking about but haven’t had the time to get to:
1) Mike Tomlin’s report card
2) How elite is Big Ben?
3) Life after LeBeau
4) Is the “Steeler Way” the best way?
If you like any of these ideas, feel free to take a crack. Or if you have other ideas, just let me know.
14One good thing about the combine is that Joe Haden ran a relatively poor 40 that may cause him to slip past some teams that overrate such things, to the point that we could move up to get him without giving up an arm and a leg.
15The 40 yard dash was originally supposed to be a measure of how fast the punt/kick COVERAGE team could get down field to stop the return.
I agree that it is useless as a measure of anything else.
16