Common sense is rarely on display at NFL Scouting Combine

By John McMullen
The Phanatic Magazine

With the exception of the Super Bowl, the NFL Draft has become the league's biggest annual event.

For months leading up to the gala event, various experts tell us exactly who is climbing up the board and who is sinking faster than the Titanic.

That process kicked off this week with the NFL Scouting Combine, which began on Wednesday in Indianapolis.

The combine is quite the event. Over three hundred of the best college football players are invited and top executives, coaching staffs, player personnel departments and medical personnel from all 32 NFL teams are on hand to evaluate the nation's top talent.

In essence, it's an intense, four-day job interview for the athletes where they are treated like women at a dance club. They are poked and prodded,
looking for minute differences in size, speed, strength, weight, quickness and mental aptitude.

It all ends on draft day when the local zealots are encouraged to get out their own ratings and weigh in on the wit and wisdom of their favorite team’s
selections.

The NFL encourages this behavior by producing a slickly packaged draft show held annually in New York for both their own network and ESPN. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell steps to an imposing podium, hands each top draft selection a team jersey and photographers snap away.

Then the fun begins -- a plethora of experts from the most famous draftnik of them all, Mel Kiper, to comedian and notable cheesy fake cat, Nick Bakay, may
chime in.

The cameras then scan the crowd for a fan dressed from head to toe in his beloved team's colors. The fan is either bumping chests with his buddy proclaiming victory or screaming in utter despair as he sees his dreams of Super Bowl glory slipping away.

Rinse and repeat from there each and every year.

The combine is where the cycle usually ramps up. It's also where you can almost always trace a team's drafting mistakes.

To me it all comes down to common sense, a tool that is not exactly en vogue these days.

From the top of our society on down, common sense has become a dinosaur.

Think about it -- whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Independent -- how can you explain your representatives voting on the largest spending bill in the world's history without actually reading it?

In the world of football, personnel people tend to lose their minds when somebody runs a 4.2 or flashes an impressive vertical leap. They will even ignore four years of tape if you impress them enough with your physical ability for one week in Indy.

This year's "physical freak" is quickly becoming San Jose State defensive end Jarron Gilbert.

Gilbert is racing up many draft boards after ESPN showed a YouTube video of the 6-foot-5, 287-pounder performing a broad jump out of a pool. Certainly an impressive athletic feat but hardly a precursor to football success.

I hate to pick on Gilbert. After all, he might turn out to be a superb NFL player. I have the testicular fortitude to admit I have no idea. There isn't a lot of San Jose State film in the McMullen household.

One thing I do know, however, is that Gilbert won't be a great NFL player because he can jump out of a pool.

An impressive 40-time once seduced Mike Tice into thinking Troy Williamson could replace Randy Moss. Turns out Williamson wasn't even Bobby Wade.

A gaudy vertical leap and shuttle run once convinced the Philadelphia Eagles that Mike Mamula would be an elite outside pass rusher in the same mold of a Reggie White or Clyde Simmons. Turns out, the only edge Mamula could circumvent cleanly was his shaving gel.

Common sense tells me watching a player's performance on the field is a better way to determine future success than the way that player looks in an Under Armour shirt.

Common sense tells me football smarts can't be measured by a Wonderlic teat.

And, history tells me a lot of NFL teams will make mistakes in this year's draft because of what goes on at the combine this week.