NFLPA had their annual Super Bowl press conference and executive director DeMaurice Smith made some interesting comments that have a lot of people thinking.
While talking about the draft, Smith mentioned his desire to have the NFL scouting combine abolished.
“Think about it … the NCAA and the NFL structure a combine during what should be every football player’s what? Last semester in college,” Smith said. “Who decided that it was a good idea to take your son and have him exclusively try out for the NFL’s exclusive way of getting into the league — for the most part, unless you’re a free-agent player? You have to be invited to the combine.
“As soon as you show up, you have to waive all of your medical rights and you not only have to sit there and endure embarrassing questions. And I think that’s horrible, and I don’t wanna pooh pooh any of that, but would you want your son to spend hours inside of an MRI [machine] and then be evaluated by 32 separate team doctors who are, by the way, are only doing it for one reason? What’s the reason? To decrease your draft value.”
Instead of the combine, Smith would like to see there be regional pro days put on by the NFLPA.
Would be a good idea but would take a lot of work.
With Pro Days being held by every single school in the country there is really no reason for the Combine. You are more likely to hurt your draft stock at the Combine than help it if we are being 100% honest.
This is why more and more players are deciding to skip the combine or only partake in certain parts of it. It is much better to have teams see you work out on your own terms.
Flip the page to see more.
