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Gleanings From The Combine
Authored by Jeff Risdon - 27th February, 2007 - 4:57 pm
With John Herrera standing to his right dressed in black and appearing not unlike an undertaker, Lane Kiffin sat down at the podium for Sunday's postgame news conference.
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I spent Thursday thru Sunday morning at the annual scouting combine in Indianapolis, my second year at the meat market. I won’t get into all the measurements, 40 times, or myriad rumors about who will draft whom and what players might get cut or traded. Instead, I’ll focus on the more general atmosphere and behind-the-scenes stuff that very few people get to experience. I’ll have a 3-round mock draft posted sometime by the end of this week, provided my cable internet isn’t on the fritz yet again.
I was fortunate enough that a NFL front office allowed me great access, and I was blessed to meet with several prominent NFL front office personnel and many agents and players, much moreso than most of my fellow internet scribes. In fact, the first day I did not meet one potential draftee or see anyone get weighed or measured.
The press corps has distinct stratification. There’s the Mel Kiper Jr.’s and Mike Mayock’s and Todd McShay’s--the big draft gurus from the big networks, plus the “insider” pundits like John Clayton, Chris Mortensen, and most of the team beat writers from the major local papers. Then there are the rest of us, from smaller internet sites or college papers or NFL draft specialty sites. There’s a lot of animosity and jealousy amongst the latter group directed at the big boys, but it’s been my experience that as long as you can prove to those guys you really know what you’re talking about, they are fairly friendly and willing to share a few words. It’s pretty easy to tell who knows what they’re talking about fairly quickly, and the subgroup of the “outsiders” wound up stratifying itself by the Friday afternoon press conferences.
One of the things I learned last year was how to watch the watchers. That is, I figured out to watch the NFL GMs and scouts and coaches while they were watching the workouts and press conferences. Some guys are pretty open and conversant about their impressions, while others look as if they’re watching C-Span all week. I tried to hang close to the more animated guys and loud talkers, so I could maybe hear some info that others might miss while trying to watch every guy work out. One GM in particular realized my strategy, and approached me with a demeanor that made me wish I was wearing full pads. Much to my surprise (and relief!), he shook my hand and asked me my thoughts on the players they were discussing, introducing me to the head coach and director of college scouting. The scouting director graciously agreed to sit down with me and do an interview once the combine is over, so you’ll be able to read that in a few weeks.
The RCA Center is where this all happens, and the NFL does a very good job accommodating the media and especially the players, agents, and team personnel. My one complaint would be the food offerings, and I’d complain ever louder if I were observant of Lent. Each of the teams has a suite, and I had a great deal of speculative fun with some other scribes watching personnel from one team head into another team’s suite, trying to figure out what deals they might be cooking up.
Really, the player workouts and drills are superfluous. The team I spent time with only uses them to reinforce what they already have deciphered on game film and postseason bowl workouts. The player interviews with the teams are indeed quite important, though almost all the draftees have undergone extensive interview coaching to the point of being monotonous robots. When you read about a guy being a “good interview” here, it means he’s able to regurgitate his spiel with good eye contact, the illusion of honesty and candor, and enthusiasm. It’s pretty easy to tell who was a true student-athlete and who was just playing football. I commented about that to several people, and one prominent national writer told me to track how those guys often get chided for “lacking athleticism or intensity”, whereas the general studies majors get tagged “needs work on fundamentals or lacks consistent focus”. Put that in your sports pages dictionary, folks, because it’s quite true.
Next year the NFL is going to open up the player workouts to the fans for the first time. Some friendly advice--save your money, unless you have an affinity for freezing rain and very large men in very skimpy, tight clothing. The players themselves are the window dressing; the real fun for me was watching agents lobby for their clients, GMs conversing about deals, inexperienced writers asking inane questions (one guy asked at least 15 head coaches if Ted Ginn could return punts for him), and seeing what teams spent inordinate amounts of time with certain draft prospects.
If you want to read some of the juicy rumors and more in-depth impressions of draftees, check out the NFL message board here on the site. There are some very good football minds here on the site, and we (generally) treat newbies pretty well. My screen name is Icness, and it has nothing to do with ice. As always, I can be reached at Jeff.Risdon@gmail.com, but I don’t need any more spam for sexual inadequacy drugs or offshore wagering, thank you very much!
