The Combine; Because a Solid 40 Time Means You're Good At Football

Yeh, remember this guy? This pretty little schoolgirl is one of the best players of our generation and he had one of the worst combine performances in recent memory. His 40 time was an abysmal 5.4 seconds (340lb nose tackle B.J. Raji ran it in 5 flat), as you can tell from the beach body in the photo above, he did not even attempt to bench press 225lbs, and he was a throwing QB; that means he was one of the guys tossing the balls to WR's while the scouts were watching them. While Brady has lost his edge and is steadily declining into mediocrity (that's a discussion for another day, but I am right Pats "fans", watch the tape), he has three rings, the record for most TD passes in a season, and has all but sealed his place in Canton. And as far as the combine is concerned, he was a long shot to fill a back-up spot.

The NFL Scouting Combine is an extremely important part of the non-playing season and has been since it formed in 1982. What many people don't realize is that the stuff that you can't see, is what is most important to coaches and executives. The combine is a three phase cattle auction of medical, psychological, and physical tests that ultimately have a serious impact on a players draft status. Ever been to a job interview where there were a couple other people there for the same job? It is pretty uncomfortable. Now imagine you are in your underwear, there are over three hundred other guys, all in their underwear, and you have to meet with 32 different potential future bosses who all have had private investigators pick apart every thing you have ever done in your life since you were first old enough to scratch your own butt!

Every year there is a number of big name players who don't do certain drills or test at the combine and people seem to think that for some reason this will effect their draft status, or its a red flag, or maybe their four years of college and Heisman Trophies and National Championships were imaginary. At the end of the day, the physical side of the combine is geared towards guys from smaller schools who coaches don't have a lot of film on and/or players who filled different positions or roles in a different scheme. What the teams really want out of the combine are the results of the medical evaluations and to grill their perspective bonus babies in the interviews. If the Chargers would have spent a little more time in the interview room, maybe Ryan Leaf screaming at reporters would have been someone else's acid flashback. Perhaps a more thorough medical examination would have shown that 1989 SI cover boy Tony Mandarich "The best offensive line prospect ever," was taking something a little stronger then whey and protein shakes when he took a year off from college to lift weights in Muscle Beach California.

So the next time you hear someone on draft day try and justify taking a part-time starting one year wonder with little to no natural football skill what so ever simply because they ran a sub-4.3 40 or put up 30+ reps on the bench press (Al Davis are you listening?), you have every right to punch them in the mouth. And when they recover their dislodged teeth and attempt to question as to the motive of their recent disciplinary action, just look and them and calming repeat the following phrase; "Your welcome."