Should the Senior Bowl or the Combine Workouts Matter?

[That Guy]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

The only thing the combine is good for is collecting accurate height and weight measurements. A 40 yard dash is different from running in a football game; so much of your time depends upon your start, which is a track & field skill, not a football skill. Players run at different speeds when in pads, some go faster, some go slower.

Vertical leap is not very meaningful either. How high a player jumps is not the most important thing; it's the timing of his jump and how he adjusts to the ball in the air, and how he uses his body to shield defenders.

Bench press: meaningless. Players use leg strength when blocking and tackling a lot more than they use upper body strength.

Now the Senior Bowl, I think that can be meaningful. You can see players playing football. But I wouldn't put much stock in how coachable they are during the Senior Bowl, of course they'll put their best foot forward during that week to help them get more money.

In the end, watching the players play college games is the #1 way to evaluate them.

and what about the senior bowl practices/one on one drills? the combine drill work? i've yet to hear a valid debunking of that, meaning there's at least some real value.

and things like 40 times are a semi useful stat - if one guy runs a 4.3, and another runs a 4.6, its pretty obvious which one is faster, even in pads. If someone runs a 4.35 and another guy runs a 4.31, obviously, the 40 times shouldn't be used as a basis for who to draft. either way, its just a piece to give you an idea of what potential maximums might be. game film is always the most important thing though - but sometimes that's hard to judge because of the competition (cooley played an awkward b-back position in div II, didn't he?).

oh yeah, we drafted carlos rodgers because of his cone times - oops.