Last night I was watching part of the fantastic Planet Earth II, a continuation of the groundbreaking nature documentary that aired about a decade ago. As I soared over some of the most beautiful vistas that our fragile planet home has to offer, watching the drama of life and death unfold in the form of a snow leopard mother and her cub, all I could think was "HOLY CRAP I BET THAT THING CAN RUN A 3.2 FORTY!"
Actually no, I didn't think that because I'm not a crazy person and can enjoy amazing things on their own merits. Not every single damn thing in life needs to be quantified, and in fact many, many things can't be quantified (unless you're willing to do a really garbage job at it).
The NFL Scouting Combine attempts to quantify the unquantifiable. And please note, I'm not denying statistics or analysis as a means to evaluate talent. If the combine was actually that, it'd have a product equal to the hype that surrounds it. Instead, you get a really weird mishmash of activities that are both fundamentally flawed and in some cases only tangentially related to the sport of football.
Here, let me casually pull a Johnny Ginter deep cut out of the vault to explain a little of what I mean as I impugn the good name of the 40 yard dash:
As the San Diego Union-Tribune famously pointed out, in 1988 Ben Johnson won the 100-meter dash at the Olympics in 9.79 seconds. Johnson was running with an elite group of sprinters, had a tailwind, was roided out of his mind, and his best 40 yards in that event worked out to... 4.38 seconds. Chris Johnson chortles with glee.
So yeah, I'm a cynic when it comes to this weekend.
But then... it is undeniably cool watching guys rep 225 pounds on the bench press a gajillion times. It's thrilling watching some of the best athletes in the world do a flat-out 40 yard sprint, competing against one another in a literal Running Man sideshow for cash.
This year, eight Ohio State players will be asked really dumb questions about what kind of tree they'd give a bank loan to, run some weird shuttle drills, and pal around with Rich Eisen for a weekend.
It's a lot of pressure! So for the newbies this offseason I figured it might be instructive to see how two of the best NFL rookies of 2016, Ohio State's Joey Bosa and Ezekiel Elliott, were able to perform in the highest-stakes workout of their entire lives. I'm sure they kicked everyone's ass!
I'm kidding. Zeke avoided a lot of the workouts, and only did even decently well in the 40 yard dash, which (as I've mentioned) is not a real thing. He finished tied for 14th in the broad jump among running backs and was literally a foot behind the guy who finished first. Elliott didn't even get in the top 15 in the vertical jump, as some guy I've never heard of named Marshaun Coprich and four other dudes destroyed him.
Joey Bosa did a lot better overall, especially in the shuttle drills, but apparently decided to run the 40 backwards and bench with his face instead of his hands and arms.
So the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year and the person who should've been the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year are busts in this exercise. But do you know whose experience might be helpful for guys like Curtis Samuel and Malik Hooker? Donald freaking Washington.
In 2009, the former Ohio State defensive back had the best broad jump and vertical jump in the entire combine, and said vertical jump still ranks as the second best mark in the last decade. It was a stunning accomplishment that would lead D-Wash to play in an incredible 32 NFL games over a storied three year NFL career, collecting two passes defended in the process.
In other words, as that extremely sarcastic paragraph was meant to imply, success at the combine frequently does not translate into success in the NFL. It certainly can translate into money for players of marginal talent, but for players or fans freaking out about a very relatively crappy shuttle time or whatever, it's probably not worth getting too worked up about. Darron Lee, for example, holds one of the best linebacker 40 times in the last decade, and graded out as the NFLs worst rookie linebacker last year.
As it turns out, the thing to keep in mind about the combine is that it is fun and awesome, but it's ultimately an exercise in something the NFL does best: self-promotion. I'm excited to see what guys like Noah Brown and Raekwon McMillan can do in the combine, not because I expect them to dominate, but because they can game a system that rewards success in a very narrow range of skills.
The Samuels and Hookers of the world will be fine no matter how they end up performing, so for the slightly jaded like myself, the real drama and wonder to be found this weekend comes from players who can change their lives through a really awesome shuttle time.
That's something less than what the NFL sells to viewers every year, but it's still a pretty damn fun addition to an offseason that's just getting started.
