NFL

The Underwear Olympics now take center stage.

They’re better known as the NFL scouting combine, at which 330 college football players gather in Indianapolis to, as Arlo Guthrie might put it, “get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected, and see-lected” by the 32 NFL teams.

Now you would think that these teams, having scouted players in actual intercollegiate play, at the Senior Bowl, at the Shrine Game and through hours of watching video, would know a lot about these players. And you would be wrong. There is no such thing as too much information.

So the 32 teams interview the players, test their football acumen, give them odd psychological exams and often ask embarrassing questions, so that they don’t invest in the wrong person. Then the players get a variety of physical exams…repeatedly. Then the actual drills, which involve very little football, begin.

There’s the three-cone drill for agility, and it’s described this way by Wikipedia: “Three cones are placed five yards apart from each other forming a right angle. The athlete starts with one hand down on the ground and runs to the middle cone and touches it. The athlete then reverses direction back to the starting cone and touches it. The athlete reverses direction again but this time runs around the outside of the middle cone on the way to the far cone running around it in figure eight fashion on his way back around the outside of the middle cone. Athletes are timed for this whole procedure.”

Timed? They should be rewarded for figuring out where to go. And, as you know, this cone-touching rarely comes up in a football game.

Players bench-press 225 pounds as many times as they can…just as they do in games. They run the 40-yard dash, though why anyone wants to see a 315-pound defensive tackle do that is nuts. If your defensive tackles are chasing anyone 40 yards, your defense stinks.

And it’s televised. All of these weights, measures and times – once deemed top-secret by the NFL – are simply more product to feed the masses. Yes, people sit in front of the T-VEE and watch these guys dash around in skimpy gear (ah, walking/running advertisements). Well, everyone needs a hobby.

Enjoy the combine. You’ll see quarterbacks throw while not under pressure, receivers run routes while not covered and scouts taking copious notes. What is learned?

That we will watch anything involving football. And that all of this work still leads to busted draft picks and wasted money.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman