INDIANAPOLIS – The NFL Scouting Combine is portrayed as a place packed with draft-related action, where prospects fly up or sink down boards around the league.
In reality, there really isn’t much that happens here to move anyone. An MRI can take a guy off a board. An excellent or bombed 15-minute interview can prompt some motion, but not a heck of a lot.
The Combine feels enormous. Inside the Indiana Convention Center, Lucas Oil Stadium and the surrounding hotels, it’s procedural.
I asked Dan Campbell when anything overrides tape.
“Override tape? For a player? You’re talking about for this? Like the Combine? Override tape? Never, I don’t think,” he said. “I don’t know what would override that. I think the tape is always going to speak louder than anything else, and if the tape doesn’t speak, then it really doesn’t matter. That’s probably the best way to say it.”
The league tells us this every year. At least the coaches and executives do.
We don’t always listen. It’s the league’s marquee February event. We finally see these players up close. With all the movement, it feels like boards should be updating by the minute — like a stock exchange.
We tune in for 40s and shuttles and breathless analysis. It can be interesting and entertaining. But it’s not as immediately impactful as we’ve been trained to believe.
“I don’t know that we are going to change the board very much coming out of this,” Raiders GM John Spytek said. “I take this for what it’s worth. It’s a big part of the process but it’s just a part of the process. Our only goal is to get the board right by late April.”
Some teams stay away entirely. They pass on interviews rather than grab that first chance to meet players and start cutting through the performative phase.
“Some of these guys are smart; they just don't articulate it well,” Brett Veach of the Chiefs said. “So, it's just seeing the whole puzzle, the pieces come together. I don't think we take a bunch of names off, but it's just a pathway to keep digging and getting as much information as possible.”
Plenty of other teams have their top people leave early.
Robert Saleh left on Thursday, before offensive linemen completed team interviews and they, receiver and running backs worked out. League-wide, seeing workouts in person is judged as less and less important as tape is readily available.
“You never want to make drastic changes (from anything you see here),” Borgonzi said. “The only ones that can get altered on the board are due to medical grades. Really, when you come to the combine, you’re really confirming things, verifying certain things.
“It’s really just a red flag system. If there was a slow 40, you go back and watch the tape."
