2012 NFL Scouting Combine: Is Too Much Weight Put on Week-Long Showcase?

With the 2012 National Football League Scouting Combine now in the books, it’s time for teams to make a few changes to their plans for the upcoming NFL draft. Some players impressed well enough to improve their draft stock while others disappointed, plummeting down draft boards across the league.

Indeed, it seems how players perform in this week-long showcase of physical and mental testing has become an event of equal importance to what they’ve accomplished in college. However, should that be the case?

In 2008, running back Chris Johnson surged up draft boards after scorching the competition with a record-breaking 4.24 40-yard dash time. Johnson’s performance propelled him from a projected second-round pick to a first-round selection by the Tennessee Titans on his way to a successful career in the NFL.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the same is true for all other top performers at the combine. In Johnson’s same combine class, former Ohio State defensive end Vernon Gholston was the talk of the town after bench pressing 225 pounds, a then-record-tying 37 times, jumping 35.5” in the vertical leap and running a sub-4.6 in the 40-yard dash. Gholston wound up being drafted sixth overall in the 2008 draft, yet four seasons later he still has yet to record a single sack.

Gholston isn’t the only player to have an eye-popping combine performance translate into an elevated draft status. Matt Jones, Adam Archuleta, Jonathan Sullivan and Mike Mamula were all “workout warriors” of their respective combine, and all failed to make a noteworthy impact in the NFL.

On the other hand, Hall of Famer Jerry Rice, the greatest receiver in NFL history, saw his draft stock drop after running the 40-yard dash in only 4.6 seconds at the 1985 NFL combine. Too bad the two teams that drafted receivers ahead of Rice didn’t realize straight-line track speed isn’t quite the same as in-game speed.

Rice is only one of many NFL stars to fall through the cracks in the NFL draft, and in fact New England Patriots receiver Wes Welker—one of those stars himself—thinks the combine is a “complete waste of time." Understandable, considering Welker, who wasn’t even invited to the scouting combine, went undrafted in 2004. Even more understandable, considering his three-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback is a former sixth-round draft pick. 

Now, I wouldn’t go as far as saying the scouting combine isn’t important at all—there’s obviously merit in measuring a prospect’s athletic abilities against another. However, what the combine doesn’t measure is a player’s amount of determination, work ethic and heart, and those are variables which only in-game performance can reveal.