.......At its best, the combine offers college players one last chance to impress the men who hold an NFL future in their hands. Throw well, run fast, make a statement. Get noticed.
At its worst the combine creates a false hope that 32 reps on the bench press can overcome four years of inconsistent game tape. Or it makes a science of foolishness by putting young athletes through such tests as the shuttle run, the three-cone drill and the standing broad jump. While the first two of these look like a game you'd set up for your nephews in the living room on a rainy day -- "OK, kids, first one twice around that empty Sun Drop can and back wins" -- who knows how many NFL coaches over the years, caught in a tight spot in the Big Game, up against it in the closing moments of the fourth quarter of a Super Bowl, have squinted down their bench and thought, "Lotta good men here with guts or toughness or character. But damn it, I wish I knew which one of these guys had the best standing broad jump."
Does this really tell you how good an NFL player Tyson Jackson could be?
Why not ask which player can punch Ray Lewis the hardest then run away? Or run down a burning staircase carrying two bucketfuls of kittens? Both test strength, dexterity, poise and character and are likely much better television.
The combine exists mostly to corroborate opinions already held about players already known; to drum up some interest in the game's offseason; to engineer some pressure to see which players can stand it and which cannot (see "stress fracture"); to determine which recruits are willing to play ball with the NFL's go-along-to-get-along mission statement and which are not (see also "AWOL"); to make a few deals over an expense-account dinner and to offer football executives a little plausible cover down the road when a prospect goes sour. "Who'd have thought that kid couldn't hang onto a football? He ran a 4.28 at the combine!"......