Andrew Hawkins: Combine showcases ‘what a player isn’t’
By Mike Dyce
The NFL Scouting Combine is the time when scouts judge players based on their performance in a series of a tests like the 40-yard dash and the shuttle. It is supposed to help scouts measure what a player can do but Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Andrew Hawkins thinks the combine exposes what a player isn’t instead of what he is.
“I think it’s valuable,” Hawkins told Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “The combine shows you more what a player isn’t than what he is. You can coach up somebody to run the 15 routes he has to run at the combine (against no defenders).
“If a guy goes in there and can’t catch the ball when no one is guarding him, well, you can’t imagine he’ll have better hands when a defender is draped all over him. . . . If he can’t run a comeback route with no coverage, I can’t imagine he can run a better comeback route with somebody pushing and grabbing him 20 yards downfield.”