Veteran Combine a Win-Win for NFL and Players, but Must Be Handled Carefully

Next month in Indianapolis, this year's incoming crop of rookies will take part in the NFL Scouting Combine. They'll be weighed, measured, interviewed and put through the paces in an event that's grown from a little-known workout in Tampa, Florida in 1982 to a weeklong televised extravaganza in Indy.

Now, the NFL has announced plans for a veteran combine, and while such an event could mean a second chance for some players—and more money for the league's coffers—it's also important for the NFL not to cross the line from extravaganza to sideshow.

As Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reported, the league announced Thursday that it will hold this "veteran combine" on March 22 in Phoenix, site of this year's owner's meetings:

According to The Associated Press (h/t ESPN.com), NFL director of football development Matt Birk called this "the natural evolution of our combine series":

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There's a void there. There was nothing for that guy out there who has one or two or three years in the league and is not with a team and is at the mercy of when the phone rings or when his agent gets him a workout. This will be a forum for these guys to showcase their talents and a service for our clubs instead of [what had been] an inefficient process.

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Birk then said that the 100 or so players who will be invited to the event will run the gamut, although it will likely skew toward younger players.

"You're talking the NFL free agent who is one year out of college and was in a training camp, or a 10-year veteran who has been a starter in the league," he said. "It will be very diverse, although at first it probably will tilt toward the younger guys."

This veteran combine will differ a bit from the rookie one in that the emphasis will be strictly on workouts and not player interviews, examinations and measurements.

"This will allow teams to get a look at the guys, and if they want to dive deeper, they can bring the players in for a physical with their own doctors, and do the interviews," Birk said. "This is whether the players pass the eye test on the field."

In this respect, it's hard to view this as a bad idea. Since the dissolution of NFL Europe in 2007, there hasn't been any sort of "farm system" in the NFL. Even the United Football League folded in 2012.

Player	Year(s)	Notes
Kurt Warner	1998	3 Super Bowl Appearances, HOF Finalist
Jake Delhomme	1998-99	Started SB XXXVII for Panthers
James Harrison	2004	5-time Pro-Bowler, 2-time SB Champion
David Akers	1999	6-time Pro Bowler, Played 16 seasons in NFL
Dante Hall	2001	2-time Pro Bowler, "The Human Joystick"

If a veteran player didn't have a home, he was at the mercy of waiting by the phone for a call, and NFL teams had to bring in such players for a workout individually at their expense.

This event will streamline that process and afford those players a great opportunity to put themselves back on NFL teams' radars.

Of course, not everyone thinks this is such a hot idea. Omar Kelly of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel voiced his opinion on the matter:

Let's be frank: The NFL's motives aren't completely altruistic. Part of the reason the combine—and the NFL draft—have been stretched out in recent years was to afford the league more original offseason programming for the NFL Network.

Football fans are voracious. They'll watch NFL players paint a house if it's on TV, and plenty of folks will be tuning in on March 22.

There are pitfalls as well. Some of these veteran players may well have washed out of the NFL because they couldn't keep themselves out of trouble.

Given all the focus that was cast on the off-the-field actions of players this past season in light of the situations involving players like Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, the last thing the league wants is some chucklehead starting a brawl in a Scottsdale, Arizona nightclub while he's in town for a workout.

With that said, even after a scandal-filled 2014 season, there still isn't a pro sports league better at controlling its own narrative than the NFL—and one would certainly hope that players vying for a second chance in the league would be all business while in town.

All in all, the idea of a veteran combine is a win-win. It's a win for players trying desperately to resuscitate their football careers. It's a win for an NFL always on the lookout for a way to shake a few more bucks off the money tree.

And if somewhere down the line it gives us a rags-to-riches story like Kurt Warner's—we could have never heard of him had it not been for NFL Europe—then it's a win for fans as well.

Gary Davenport is an NFL Analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and the Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter @IDPManor.