Overrated Combine Becoming Less Attractive to NFL Coaches but GMs Will Be Busy Talking with Agents + Rodgers Thoughts
Jeff Diamond
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It’s NFL Combine week, the most overrated event on the NFL calendar.
The fact that several head coaches are not attending the Combine — including the Packers’ Matt LaFleur and the Rams’ Sean McVay — should tell us it’s not a priority for some coaches who would rather avoid the convention atmosphere with hundreds of coaches hitting them up for jobs and spend the time working on free agency planning and their playbooks.
Overrated Combine Becoming Less Attractive to NFL Coaches but GMs Will Be Busy Talking with Agents + Rodgers Thoughts
These coaches know they can see Combine tape later of the college players doing drills and engaging in interviews with teams while their team doctors and trainers conduct extensive physicals.
It appears Vikings Coach Kevin O’Connell is among the majority of head coaches who will be in Indianapolis for the Combine along with his assistants and GM Kwesi Adolfo-Mensah with his scouting staff.
Adofo-Mensah and his player personnel execs and scouts have set up their draft board and will spend the next two months fine-tuning the player grades and rankings leading up to the April 27-29 draft, in which the Vikings will select 23rd overall in the first round. Minnesota currently has only three other picks — in the third, fourth, and fifth rounds pending the league awarding them an additional compensatory pick or two for free agents lost last year and signed elsewhere (such as tight end Tyler Conklin going to the Jets).
The Vikings figure their second-round pick this year was well worth the price as part of the package to acquire Pro Bowl tight end T.J. Hockenson.
As for the Combine, it’s ridiculous that NFL Network will have 23 hours of live coverage of the players running 40-yard dashes, doing agility drills and vertical leaps from this Thursday through Sunday. They will have another 20-plus hours of hosts hyping the Combine as a critical event in the player evaluation process when it’s a small piece of a big puzzle in grading draft prospects.
This is why so many top players (such as a potential top overall pick in Alabama QB Bryce Young) will not do physical testing at the Combine and will wait for their Pro Day in March, where they feel more in control at their colleges (and can prepare for another 1-3 weeks in most cases).
In our pre-Combine meetings during my years as Vikings GM and Titans President, I would always tell our player personnel execs, scouts, and coaches not to be overly influenced by what a player does or doesn’t do at the Combine and Pro Day.
Of course, we wanted an accurate read on their speed, but for many positions, 10-yard sprints are more meaningful than 40 yards. We wanted to see their quickness in drills, vertical leaping ability, and how many reps they could do on the weight bench. But I would stress that the most important factor should always be “How did they play in games during their college career?”
I would talk about Vikings Hall of Fame receiver Cris Carter who ran in the 4.5-4.6 range in the 40, but he had terrific hands and was one of the league’s best route runners. Carter was a fourth-round pick by the Eagles in the 1987 supplemental draft. And there was Hall of Fame defensive tackle John Randle who I signed as an undrafted player in 1990 because most teams thought he was too small to play in the NFL.
The most important element of the Combine for the players and the teams evaluating them are the physicals, as team doctors and trainers will closely examine the athletes to uncover any injury, abnormality, or pre-existing condition. This information is vital as teams cannot trust what college trainers and doctors tell them.
After player physicals, the interviews of players by teams are the next most valuable part of Combine week. In these 15-minute interviews, players are grilled on their childhood, girlfriends, whether they have a drug or alcohol problem, any legal issues, how they feel about playing in a particular city, and how they should react in various offensive and defensive schemes.
The problem with these interviews at the Combine–and later repeated at Pro Day and on team visits– is players today are better trained and prepped in advance. I have done this interview prep work in the past for the NFL agent group I work with — IFA.
With free agency less than two weeks away and most agents in Indy for meetings with the NFL Players Association, there will be lots of conversation and negotiation taking place on teams’ pending free agents (such as Dalvin Tomlinson, Patrick Peterson, Garrett Bradbury, Irv Smith Jr., Alexander Mattison and Greg Joseph for the Vikings).
There also will be lots of discussion between agents and team execs on contract extensions, restructures, reductions, or pending releases to gain salary cap relief on high-priced vets such as the Vikings’ Kirk Cousins, Danielle Hunter, Brian O’Neill, Adam Thielen, Harrison Smith, Za’Darius Smith, Eric Kendricks, Jordan Hicks, and Dalvin Cook.
Then there’s the always-present tampering that goes on in Indianapolis this week as GMs meet with agents to talk contract “parameters” for other teams’ free agents-to-be (even though, by rule, they are not allowed to do so until March 13).
Lots of activity but not a lot of excitement for the TV audience at the Combine. So if you need a nap in the coming days, turn on the NFL Network “wall to wall” Combine coverage, and I guarantee you’ll be snoozing in no time as you watch this boring, overhyped event.
Around the NFL Observations:
1. The cuts are starting to come around the league as quarterbacks Carson Wentz and Marcus Mariota were released this week by Washington and Atlanta, respectively. It’s just the start with many more to come, including a few from the Purple.
2. At his pre-Combine press conference this week, Packers GM Brian Gutekunst sent another subtle message on the possibility — that appears to be becoming more probable — of moving on from Aaron Rodgers. He said he hadn’t been informed of Rodgers’ plans and then added, “Our feelings haven’t changed about Aaron, but we need to have some conversations about our team, where it’s going, and where he’s at before we go forward.”
In the next breath, Gutekunst said the team is excited about former No. 1 pick Jordan Love and added, “He needs to play. That’s the next step in his progression. Jordan’s done a great job and worked really hard, so he’s doing everything we’re asking. He’s ready and excited.”
Love also is a lot cheaper, with a $3.1 million cap number in 2023 compared to the $59 million Rodgers is scheduled to earn this season, although Rodgers’ deal will be restructured wherever he winds up. I see a trade coming to the Raiders or Jets, and then the Packers would absorb a big dead money hit this year and get Rodgers off the books in 2024, or they could trade him on June 1 and split the dead money hit over 2023 and 2024. Vikings nation will be closely monitoring this ongoing saga.
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Jeff Diamond is a former Vikings GM, former Tennessee Titans President and was selected NFL Executive of the Year after the Vikings’ 15-1 season in 1998. He now works for the NFL agent group IFA based in Minneapolis and does other sports consulting and media work along with college/corporate speaking. Follow him and direct message him on Twitter– @jeffdiamondnfl
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