A job interview can be one of the most important events in a young adult’s life.
This past week Anthony Dixon and Jamar Chaney went to one of the most famous job interviews in America: the NFL scouting combine. To be invited is a great honor and both players represented the Bulldogs well as they went through their drills and exercises.
With every team in the NFL in attendance, these two Dawgs were given an opportunity to impress potential employers with attributes of speed, size, strength and agility.
The question is how well do the drills at the scouting combine measure potential NFL success?
The modern day combine was formed in 1977 by scouting companies to bring all the players and all the teams to one location. This was innovative at the time and turned out to be a great idea. The only problem is that the drills designed to showcase the athlete’s ability haven’t changed very much since 1977. This would be perfectly fine if the league had remained the same along with the drills, but it hasn’t. Case in point, in 1977 the NFL season consisted of only 14 games and saw the outlawing of the defensive head slap. Eight current teams didn’t even exist in 1977 and the zone blitz and wildcat formation were still just figments of the imagination.
It was this very year that the scouts came up with the basic drills that make up the combine. The most popular and well known drills used in the combine are the 40-yard dash, the bench press, the broad jump and the vertical jump. The significance placed on these drills by scouts is incredible, to say the least.
To start, the most popular drill at the combine is the 40-yard dash. A player’s stock can have a dramatic rise or fall based on the time they get. The first problem with this drill is that the players are timed basically in their underwear. In a game situation, the player would have on a full set of pads and a helmet weighing them down. Some players function more easily and carry this extra weight better than others.
Another issue is it only measures one directional speed. Too much emphasis is placed on this drill. To prove this point, in 1985 Jerry Rice was invited to the combine and ran a “slow” 4.7 second 40-yard dash. He fell all the way to pick number 17 and was the third wide receiver selected. It’s pretty easy to see how that turned out.
For further evidence on drafting players solely based on speed at the combine, check out the Raiders’ last few drafts and how their seasons ended up.
The broad jump, vertical jump and bench press are even more ridiculous than the 40-yard dash. If these actions had a direct correlation with on-field success then the Olympics could function as the new combine.
It is often assumed that because a player is strong and has the ability to jump that he is a good football player. Examples of these “weight room warriors” can be found throughout the history of the NFL. One of the most famous would have to be Tony Mandarich who, coming out of Michigan State in 1989 was an absolute freakish specimen. At 6’5″ and weighing 304 pounds, Mandarich ran a 4.65 second forty yard dash. He bench pressed 225 pounds 39 times, had a broad jump measuring 10’3″ and had a 30″vertical leap. In combine terms, he should have been the most impressive player drafted in his class.
He managed three seasons before being cut by the Packers. To add insult to injury he was picked ahead of “less impressive” players like Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas and Deion Sanders.
The important thing to remember in all this is to never count on or discount someone based on his performance at the combine. The things that make great players great cannot be measured in feet, inches, pounds or seconds.
Kurt Pinnix is a sophomore majoring in communication. He can be contacted at [email protected].