Here is the URL, but I think you need to pay for this premium content:
http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/draft06/insider/columns/story?columnist=spielman_rick
Below are a few of the more interesting quotes:
When I was with the Miami Dolphins, we would hold a specific combine meeting with everyone who would be attending to go over each player on our board and identify specific things we needed to find out about them.
Of all the tests and evaluations performed at the combine, [medical evaluation] might have the biggest influence on whether a team will draft a player, regardless of
how he grades out as a football player. Teams will take players off their draft board if the doctors decide it is not worth the medical risk to draft the player.
Some people might wonder what scouts possibly can evaluate when a player stands alone on a stage in just his shorts. ... Some teams will go as far as identifying tattoos that could be gang related.
Spielman also spouts the usual stuff about thinking every player should run the 40 at the combine, and that fast players are fast and slow players are slow and blah blah blah. This is the one-way street stuff that galls me.
First off, NFL scouts put SO much value in the 40 time that a player can hurt his draft status incredibly by turning in a slow time. A player can enhance his status by ripping it up in the 40. There are many examples of the 40 time being a determining factor.
And the funny thing is, much like my college GPA, which I don't mention in polite company, NOBODY ever, EVER brings up a 40 time for 98 percent of the guys in the NFL again. If you can play, you can play.
(Of course, I get sucked into the 40-time thing more than I would like to. It is pretty impressive when you hear some of the 40 times of some of those guys, such as Samie Parker of Oregon or Bethel Johnson out of Texas A&M, who each seemed to have about a 4.28 40.)
Pat Kirwan wrote a column in 2004 regarding the 40 time, and I found it online.
http://www.nfl.com/draft/story/7095858
In it, he sort of advocates finding players who are great college players and who look very athletic in every phase of the game, but who blow their 40 times. His two examples are Domanick Davis and Anquan Boldin, who had bad 40 times and were docked in the draft, and turned out to be NFL players. I don't think players should be upgraded because of bad work in Indy, of course. I think it was Bill Walsh who said that Bill Walsh's genius in drafting players was that he only really looked at what players did in college games as the indication of what they could do, not their size or 40 times or arm strenghth or anything else.
Here are some quotes from the Kirwan piece:
As one prominent agent said to me this week when I asked him if his top clients were working out in Indy, he said 'no, and for two big reasons: Domanick Davis and Anquan Boldin'. Both of those young players last year felt they had to do everything at the combine so they participated and they ran slow. Their draft status was damaged in the eyes of club officials with the slow times.
Why take a slow player when you can take a fast player? Maybe because the "slower" player is a better football player? Davis ran a 4.62, which is a bit too slow for an elite running back. Boldin ran an awful 4.72, which is snails pace for a wide receiver. Of course, both players went on to have excellent rookie seasons in the NFL. Davis ran for 1,031 yards and eight touchdowns as the top rookie running back in the league for Houston and Boldin caught 101 passes for 1,377 yards and eight touchdowns. Their football production far outweighed their 40-yard times, but Davis was drafted in the fourth round and Boldin went in the second round.
All I can think about if I were running a personnel department right now is to tell my staff, 'go find the Domanick Davis and Anquan Boldin of this draft.'
I took a look at the All-Rookie team and a number of rookies who excelled this past season that were drafted no higher than the fourth round to find the common thread as to why they were drafted lower than where they actually performed.
Panthers cornerback Ricky Manning started in the Super Bowl. After he won the starting job, his team went 6-1 on the road. He was drafted in the fourth round and he ran a slow 40 (4.53) at the combine. He ran faster later in the spring but was ranked anywhere between eighth and 12th on most cornerback lists. One college scout admitted his combine 40 time was a factor.
There is a great opportunity waiting for the people responsible for a team's draft to look at combine results differently and find those special players most teams will be downgrading this week because of a less-than-stellar performance.
As one of smartest football friends I have in the NFL said to me this week, 'there is a competitive edge to be gained from changing the way I use the results of the combine. I hope after all these years I can try different ways of using the information we gather in Indianapolis'.
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