NFL Scouting Combine highlights infatuation with measurables in NFL

There’s something exciting about the pageantry of it all.

We hear references to 40-yard dash speed and vertical leap throughout the course of the season, and there’s something satisfying about seeing the numbers next to the names as the product of a controlled environment.

But as we anxiously await the television event that the NFL Scouting Combine has become, it also highlights an infatuation that the National Football League has with measurables. That infatuation has cost–and made, for that matter–players millions of dollars, and it’s likely cost–and made, for that matter–NFL franchises even more.

In a literal sense, the NFL Scouting Combine tells us who is faster, who is stronger, who jumps higher, who is quicker and roughly a dozen other qualities we’ve deemed measurables. The numbers give us absolutes to work with and when we talk about the attributes that make an athlete athletic, they’re what we lean on.

However, while there’s method to the madness, there’s also unquestionable madness to the method.

Knowing who is faster between Player A and Player B is a critical component of evaluating a player, but there are other variables to factor in. There’s the fact that testing isn’t conducted in pads, there’s the fact that football players rarely run 40 yards unimpeded and there’s the fact that often times splits are the better indicators of speed and acceleration, specifically to players who don’t get to play in space.

Of course, the 40-yard dash is just the most noteworthy of the NFL Scouting Combine events. There are several other measurables, and all are equally flawed in measuring the merit of a football player.

Now, front office personnel from the the 32 different NFL franchises will stress the fact that the NFL Scouting Combine is merely a tool used in evaluating players, and that’s unquestionably true. With millions of dollars at stake, the NFL and its 32 teams sink an astronomical amount of time and resources into these decisions, and they undoubtedly weigh game film, the interview process and background checks along with combine results.

However, with days of non-stop coverage of the event available to the masses on the NFL Network, they’re also contributing to an oversimplification of the game they love.

It’s not reasonable to assume that the league would be in a better situation if they didn’t air NFL Scouting Combine coverage. The allure of money and attention isn’t something any entertainment industry can afford.

Yet, at the same time, it’d be nice to see more context added to what’s going on.

We treat the NFL Scouting Combine like the single most critical component to talent evaluation because it’s the most visible part of the process, so, the alternative would either be to trivialize it and stress its actual place in the hierarchy of evaluation tools or to offer more coverage of other aspects of the process.

Of course, NFL teams are terrified of having the veil lifted on what they view as protected intellectual property, but when the alternative is having a game that is already viewed as barbaric and simple dumbed down even further, it may be a necessary trade off.

Transparency has never been a bad thing in relation to sports. At every step of the way, it has led to more informed fans, and more informed fans have proven time and time again to be voracious consumers of product.

The NFL is the product we desperately crave,but the NFL Scouting Combine standing on its own isn’t something that allows fans to appreciate the true nuance of NFL scouting departments. And since we know that less will never be an option for the National Football League and the NFL Network, I guess we have to ask for more.

We need more coverage of the draft process, from the interview process to the game film to the individual workouts and beyond. At the risk of sounding gluttonous, more is the only viable option.

More would at least frame the NFL Scouting Combine in the proper context and help us to better understand a game we clearly love.