There will be no NFL Combine this year as COVID-19 lingers over the pre-draft process, impacting teams, agents, and prospects in significant ways.
One year ago, general managers, scouts, and coaches from all 32 NFL teams boarded flights out of Indianapolis. They left with varying degrees of understanding the severity of a soon-to-be global pandemic.
Now, for the second consecutive offseason, COVID-19 hangs over the NFL like a dark cloud, wreaking havoc on the traditional pre-NFL Draft process.
Much like last spring when the pandemic forced many major college football programs to cancel pro days, and scouting staffs were grounded from getting a first-hand glimpse on the campus of the top NFL Draft prospects, this year, there will be no NFL Scouting Combine. That means no centralized and independently timed 40-yard dashes at Lucas Oil Stadium, no late-night interview gauntlets in modified J.W. Marriott hotel rooms, and no in-person opportunities for a prospect to stand out from the pack face-to-face with entire front offices present.
“It’s been extremely difficult to gather information when you aren’t able to meet with and talk to people face-to-face,” an AFC scout tells FanSided.
Beyond the 40-yard dashes, short-shuttles, three-cone drills and other position-specific drills that the top NFL Draft prospects are put through under the glaring microscope of the league’s power-brokers, there’s a reason Indianapolis has been home to the Combine since 1987.
There are three hospitals within a 10-minute drive from downtown Indianapolis, which makes getting universal and verifiable medical reports on every prospect easy for each team.
In draft season of COVID, that has become a significantly more difficult task.
This year, the league issued a memo to all 32 clubs that the league is “Working alongside club physicians and trainers to develop a way in which to obtain ‘comprehensive medical information on each of the invited prospects,’ and that in-person testing will be available for ‘a certain number of prospects,’ at designated locations, likely in April.”
April physicals for players means that teams could be building tentative boards without accurate measurements or statuses of injuries a player might be recovering from last season.
There’s also concern among teams over just how accurate those medical reports will be.
“The medical is a gigantic hurdle,” an NFC personnel executive tells FanSided. “If the plan is to send these guys to medical doctors 50 miles from their campus … okay, really. Planning to send a guy from Alabama, for example, to an alumni of the Crimson Tide who has had season tickets for the past 20 years, he’s going to say something is wrong medically with one of their players so he doesn’t get drafted as high? Hell no. He’s going to write down everything that teams want to hear in a positive manner.
“They want to set it up for these guys so they don’t have to travel very far, won’t miss any school, and are going to have to do an exam that goes out to all 32 teams. If Nick Saban is the head coach at Alabama, and you’re about to meet the eight guys from Alabama who are entering the draft, you’re going to guarantee me that that doctor is going to ignore a phone call if it comes in from Nick Saban, for example, to influence what he puts down on the results? How do we know that doctor isn’t going to just say ‘Roll Tide’ and pass those guys with flying colors?”
For the NFL’s — and the players’ sake — hopefully the executive’s fears are unfounded, and the league can maintain a sense of independence among the physicians conducting the pre-draft physicals, but it will certainly be a departure from the uniformity of the information that teams have become accustomed to for decades.
The biggest losers, though, for there not being a Combine, are players projected to be late-round draft picks or even potential undrafted free agents.
“It’s not just an issue for late-round guys,” an NFL agent tells FanSided. “If you’re a middle-round pick, potentially with some character concerns, and you can’t get that one-on-one time with teams to look a head coach or GM in the eye, shake his hand, and address whatever issue might have shown up or convince them that you’re a fit for their locker room … you could go from being a third-round pick to a sixth-round pick.”
Much like the Combine, COVID-19 forced the cancellation of several college football All-Star games, robbing some lesser-known prospects of valuable on-field time with NFL coaches and one last game film against premier competition, that players from some smaller programs might not have had during their collegiate careers.
University of Buffalo running back Jarett Patterson is one of those players. Patterson, projected to be as high as a second-round pick after rushing for 1,072 yards and 19 touchdowns as a junior in 2020, certainly could have benefited from one more audition. But, he isn’t letting the lack of a Combine discourage him ahead of the draft.
“I certainly wanted to go and showcase my talents, compete with the other running backs in this class, and prove that I’m one of the best backs in this class,” Patterson tells FanSided. “But, I’m not bummed because you have to control what you can control, and the scouts are going to have to do their jobs. They’re going to have to do their research, watch tape, watch film, and one thing that I have is film. I have some pretty strong film and it speaks for itself.”
Every year there are myriad players who dramatically increase their draft stock coming out of Indianapolis. Sometimes first-round picks wind up going off the board in the top-10 after impressive workouts, others, it’s a player on a few teams’ radars that makes their board and hears their name called in Round 6 or 7 after an impressive meeting or on-field performance.
Alabama tight end Miller Forristall is a potential third-round pick and exactly the type of player who would have had the chance to significantly rise up boards if he had the opportunity to get in front of every team in Indianapolis. Viewed as a likely Day 3 selection, at 6-foot-5 and 244 pounds, Forristall caught 23 passes for 253 yards and a touchdown as a senior.
“It’s definitely an odd year without a real Combine or individual workouts,” Forristall tells FanSided. “It makes pro days much more important, and it’s a little harder to build relationships via Zoom.”
Now, the final audition for prospects is their school’s pro day, where only two representatives from each club will be permitted due to social distancing, necessary because of COVID-19.
Forget meeting entire coaching staffs and front offices with the chance to diagram your top plays on a whiteboard or sell your resume to teams in person.
Just another uphill challenge that prospects, and teams, must navigate.
“Even when I have phone calls with teams, the interview process is going to be more important than ever this year,” Patterson says. “Because you can’t go to Indy and have that face-to-face because of COVID. But, teams are going to have to do extra homework, see who fits their system, and find their guys.”
Offseason winners and losers
Quick thoughts on the biggest moves made so far this offseason:
Los Angeles Rams: Winners
Adding Matthew Stafford, a quarterback with fringe Hall of Fame credentials fresh off a 4,084-yard and 26-touchdown season into the best offensive situation of his career only solidifies Los Angeles’ place atop the NFC West power rankings.
Stafford props open a legitimate Super Bowl window for the next three years as the quarterback landscape in the NFC continues to winnow down with Drew Brees’ likely retirement, Aaron Roders’ and Tom Brady approaching AARP membership, etc.
Houston Texans: Losers
Deshaun Watson vows to never again wear a Texans uniform. Nick Caserio says he’ll never answer the phone to entertain a Watson trade offer. This is the most dysfunctional organization in professional sports.
Indianapolis Colts: Winners
Reuniting quarterback Carson Wentz with head coach Frank Reich, who helped mold him to an MVP-caliber player in 2017, behind one of the NFL’s premier offensive lines with Michael Pittman Jr. to throw to, Jonathan Taylor to hand it off to, and $62 million in cap space to build around Wentz could make the Colts instant Super Bowl contenders.
Pittsburgh Steelers: Losers
Pittsburgh has tied itself into a Ben Roethlisberger-sized pretzel. Rather than biting the bullet and moving on from the rapidly declining 39-year-old, with an eye towards a gap year at quarterback and possibly picking as high as the top-10 in the 2022 NFL Draft within reach of a top prospect, Pittsburgh seems primed to bring Roethlisberger back, at what they hope is a reduced rate.
Roethlisberger’s camp being “absolutely insulted” at the suggestion of a pay cut might dash those hopes. The distance between the Steelers and their view looking up towards the Browns and Ravens might never have been wider.
Jalen Hurts: Winner
The Philadelphia Eagles very well might draft a quarterback at No. 6 overall, but barring general manager Howie Roseman flipping the assets acquired in the Wentz trade — don’t rule it out — Philadelphia won’t land Zach Wilson and Justin Fields.
Even if the Eagles take a quarterback in Round 1, Hurts has two months of runway with a new coaching staff to show he has the work ethic and talent necessary to become a franchise quarterback, and a season’s worth of goodwill built up inside that locker room.
Quotable
"“A few days earlier we had known the four or five teams were, so I had shirts for each team ordered, just in case the situation arose. But, we were trying to keep this so quiet, that I didn’t trust whoever at the packaging facility saw my name on the package and wouldn’t put two-and-two together, so I had my brother’s high school friend use his credit card, his address, and had the shirts shipped to his house, and then he brought them to my house, so we could make this announcement happen.”"
– J.J. Watt on the story behind how he broke the story of his signing with the Arizona Cardinals
https://twitter.com/JJWatt/status/1366444807258845184/photo/1
Some people might think this is a self-aggrandizing move on Watt’s part, but, I applaud the creativity behind announcing his decision himself on social media, especially after his Twitter page became such a focal point of his brief free agency.
This is sports. It’s supposed to be fun, and Watt’s daily breadcrumbs of what seemed to be teases of his negotiations with various teams via photos or cryptic tweets had fans and media on the edge of their seats for the better part of the past two weeks.
Tweeting a photo of himself wearing an Arizona Cardinals’ t-shirt in the weight room is on-brand for Watt.
Few athletes have the cultural stature to be able to captivate the fanbase of an entire sport the way Watt does the NFL and to hear the lengths that he took to keep the announcement a secret is an amusing peek behind the curtain of a professional athlete’s life.
Final thought
Kyle Van Noy was the first marquee player to become available this week, but he won’t be the last in coming weeks as teams shed salary to get below the current $180 million salary cap floor.
Van Noy was just one year into a four-year contract worth $51 million, including $15 million in guarantees already paid out by the Dolphins.
As we covered in this space last week, there is a chance that the salary cap rises after the NFL and Disney agreed in principle to a new television rights package, and there is a chance that Amazon could soon become the exclusive home of Thursday Night Football with new FOX and CBS deals quickly following suit. However, that is far from guaranteed, and teams are beginning to prepare as if it will not.
“Our biggest challenge is trying to determine how flooded the market will be and at what positions,” a general manager recently told FanSided. “Because of the cap drop.”
Van Noy is a starting-caliber player, who like Watt, will have the opportunity — should the Dolphins release him after attempting to trade him — to sign elsewhere. Don’t be surprised when other veterans hit the market in the coming days before free agency begins, and the teams that stand to benefit the most are the Jaguars, Jets, Patriots, Colts, and Broncos, who each has over $40 million in cap space and won’t need to shed salary to get in the market.
This is going to be a fascinating offseason of movement, and it’s going to heat up even before free agency begins, this time around.
Matt Lombardo is the site expert for GMenHQ, and writes Between The Hash Marks each Wednesday for FanSided. Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattLombardoNFL.