NFL combine begins, evolving to balance needs of players, league

As the league, draft prospects, agents and team personnel tried to navigate what this year’s combine would look like, a few things were in flux over the last few weeks. Now, the weeklong showcase at Lucas Oil Stadium is closer to what it looked like in pre-pandemic years, but will continue to evolve in the future as all parties say they need to account for new technology, player safety and best evaluation practices.

An initial push to have a strict bubble was abandoned last week, after agents reportedly pushed back in hopes of making sure players could have full access to their support teams. Players are now permitted to leave the combine area at their own risk, according to an NFL memo. Masks are required for in-person interviews and medical exams, but are otherwise optional.

“I got a lot of calls when that was announced of what the restrictions were going to be,” NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said on a conference call Friday. “A lot of these places where they train these guys, they are creatures of habit. They have a process that they go with. These guys are on very strict nutrition, in terms of the workouts they're going through and all the prep work, so I think the last-minute change on that startled them.”

Still, the combine will look different in other ways.

Changes included getting rid of the Wonderlic Test, as reported by The Associated Press in January, and revising some of the drills. At a panel during Super Bowl week, Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, said tweaks to drills came in part from the league’s advancements in tracking players on the field.

Zebra Technologies is the on-field player-tracking provider of the NFL and the company that powers Next Gen Stats. The partnership, which began in 2014, provides extended data, which is now informing what to look for at the combine. Vincent called it “the combine reimagined,” and said the data can help tailor more useful drills to specific positions, versus some traditional ones.

“Some of those drills, they have no game application,” Vincent said. “Why are we doing drills that have absolutely nothing to do with the game because somebody said we should do it in 1977?”

Vincent used Rams star pass rusher Aaron Donald as an example, saying that with Next Gen Stats, they could look at the most frequent movements of a player such as Donald during games, and then make sure drills at the combine were reflecting those movements. He added that it can help teams better compare prospects to current players.

“Next Gen Stats, the data would allow us to do that,” Vincent said. “So we're looking at each position. The route tree – there's the route tree at the professional level, and some of the routes that we see at the combine, they never run that on game day. So why are we measuring that? So those are the things – we talk about combine reimagined – we have to look at. But the data allows us to do that.”

In terms of the pass catchers, "wide receivers and tight ends will run crossing routes instead of wheel routes, and running backs will run option routes instead of corner and post-corner routes," the AP reported.

Vincent also said that with a growing number of data points – including colleges allowing prospects to pass along more information – the league can look at things differently. Couple those advancements with lessons from last year’s need for teams to get creative with remote scouting, and Vincent said the combine will continue to evolve.

“As we think through what the future combine looks like, with telehealth, Next Gen Stats allow us to look at evaluations differently,” Vincent said.

Even with shifting technology, Jeremiah still sees the in-person combine as an important way to evaluate players. FaceTime, Zoom and other means of connecting have helped facilitate interviews with greater ease, but he believes seeing players together helps paint a better picture, especially when evaluations might have thin margins.

“I still think it has value. It definitely has changed,” he said. “I think it's still valuable from the standpoint of watching these guys all move around on the field together. When you've got corners and you've got four corners that you've got the same grade on and you think they're potential starters, have them all kind of in your third-round stack, and they're out on the same field at the same time doing the same drills, it really helps you to be able to separate those and evaluate those guys in terms of how they move.

“I have always said the combine, the All-Star games, they don't provide wild swings, but they can break ties, and I think there's still value there.”

Combine schedule

NFL Network will air drills and some media availabilities. A total of 324 prospects have been invited.

Wednesday, 7 p.m., quarterbacks, wide receivers, tight ends.

Thursday, 7 p.m., running backs, offensive linemen, special teams.

Friday, 7 p.m., defensive linemen, linebackers.

Saturday, 2 p.m., defensive backs.