mars
Combine winners and losers
By Nolan Nawrocki,
For as much is made about workout results at the NFL Scouting Combine, it is not numbers that have the greatest meaning to NFL teams, as they have already spent most of the fall assessing talent, with most teams having held meetings in the weeks leading up to the Combine to set their draft boards based on football-playing evaluations, which will comprise 90 percent of a player’s final grade.
Combine testing helps separate ties and forces evaluators to re-visit the tape of performers who stand out, good or bad. What is valued most highly by NFL decision makers are the medical evaluations performed by team doctors and the 15-minute interview sessions with players, which help give a glimpse of player personalities and allows teams to assess any blemishes on their records and figure out if they would like to spend more time courting prospects through the spring workout process.
With evaluators having had the least amount of time to assess the junior class that only became official in mid-January, the evaluation of the underclassmen is especially important, as measurables are verified and character is dissected.
Following are 10 players that have helped themselves in Indianapolis and 10 who have raised concerns, with the highly scrutinized underclassmen marked by an asterisk. The players are listed alphabetically.
