One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure right? For every beautiful woman in the world, there’s a man tired of looking at her. Well, the NFL combine is a beautiful woman that I’m just tired of looking at.
When the NFL began to televise the combine in 2004. I went bat shit crazy. I called Cox Cable about a gazillion times to see if they could carry the NFL Network. No dice. All I wanted to do was watch my OU Sooner friends compete in the NFL combine. I wanted to see what it was all about. What drills were they doing? Would they show the interviews? What the hell was going to happen, because the combine to me was some mythical thing. It’s been around since the 80s but no one has ever seen it. Is this shit even real? You heard the rumors of Deion Sanders running a 4.2 40, Bo Jackson running a 4.12 40, Reggie White bench pressing Indiana and then holding a prayer meeting for all the NFL teams that didn’t draft him.
When I could finally watch the combine in 2005, it was dope. You got to see what all the hype was about. It was a televised Star Wars convention for football junkies. The 2007 combine was great. You had Adrian Peterson, who’s brother died the night before his workout, perform and demolish his entire workout running a 4.38 40. There was Calvin Johnson who, rumor has it, wasn’t going to run the 40, but was taken over by the spirit of competition and borrowed someone else’s shoes and chopped out a 4.35 40 yard dash at 6’5″ 239 lbs. Oh yeah, he jumped 42.5 inches too.
I was very very very very wrong about Matt Stafford and Mark Sanchez. Stafford was too good to throw at the combine, Sanchez said “let her rip!”. I feel in love with Sanchez. I thought he was a competitor, I thought Stafford was soft. The Lions would be crazy to select Stafford over Sanchez right? Well, we’re in the middle of their careers and right now Stafford was the right choice.
I don’t know what it is though. This year, I’m just over it. What is the combine telling me that film already hasn’t? Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the same act for nine years now. Players run, jump, lift, twist, turn, spin, etc. Mike Mayock explains football so eloquently that my African step mother can understand what a zone blitz with a single high free safety is. A no name player becomes the hot new girl on the first day of school. Rich Eisen runs a sub 6.1 40 yard dash. I’ve seen it all before.
If you want to improve the NFL Combine broadcast, open up the doors of those interview rooms. What makes the Patriots great? What kind of questions are they asking? What makes the Browns suck? What kind of questions are they asking? Who cares about the Wonderlic scores, what questions did the players get wrong? I’m not saying get rid of the combine. It’s a necessary evil. But as a lover of football it’s like watching the Division II football playoffs. I’ll watch it because it’s football and there’s nothing better than football to watch, but I won’t be entertained. NFL combine….been there, done that.