Friday, February 25, 2011

The Weak Ender: Who should you pick?



The NFL scouting world will spend a lot of time watching dudes in underwear this week trying to figure out who to pick. Looks like Brooklyn Decker has made her selection.

I HAVE a bone to pick with the combine. What a seemingly useless exercise. Sure it's fun to see guys in shorts run the 3-cone drill, compete in the bench press and exhibit their hops. But does any of this really translate to football?

Oh, who can forget that one Super Bowl that hinged on how quickly a linebacker could run the shuttle drill. The Steelers would have two more titles if Rashard Mendenhall's vertical was a little better. Or if James Harrison was faster in the 3-cone drill.

So how about some combine drills that would really translate to the NFL game we have come to know and love?

Presenting the top six combine drills we would like to see.

6. Gatorade dump
The bench press is nice, but today's NFL players need to show the muscle memory to properly lift a Gatorade bucket and dump it over their respective coach's head. Too many times you see a player not get the lift needed to properly execute this move, and instead, you get a coach's backside drenched instead of a full soaking. So have prospects compete to see who can execute the most Gatorade dumps in two minutes.

Of course, this skill might not be important to some teams like the Browns or Bills.

5. Chest bumping/towel waving
Fringe NFL prospects often save their NFL careers because of their performance on special teams. But a player also could make a long-term impact chest-bumping a star player as he's coming off the field. But you have to make sure that a player could actually get the height required to make this move. Like look at the Vikings mascot Ragnar in this video (about the minute mark) ... that is why he never made it to the NFL.

Also, players who wave towels have a valuable impact on NFL team's, too. Do you think it was Aaron Rodgers' rocket arm that won Super Bowl XLV? Nah, it was the guys who waved towels on the bench to fire up the crowd. Have your would-be NFL star wave a towel for five minutes to see who has the stamina to take it to the next level.

4. Baseball cap wearing
The majority of these quarterbacks going through the combine are not going to be NFL starters. Well, unless they go to the Cardinals or Panthers because it seems that every quarterback on those rosters got a chance last year. But you want to make sure your quarterback knows how to wear that baseball cap. Throw your quarterback prospect a cap and see how he wears it. Does he go for the classic look? Or does he go with the lame backwards cap deal? The Panthers could have saved themselves a lot of heartache if they had seen this.

3. End zone celebration
You don't think having the proper end zone celebration is important? Then you have obviously never seen this video. You can actually make this a very noteworthy combine drill on NFL Network by having Paula Abdul and Hugh Jackman judge the participants. I smell ratings gold.

2. Tweeting
You can't be an NFL player without a Twitter account. But can your prospect take it to the next level. Hand a player a computer and a new Twitter account and time how fast it will take him to alienate his teammates and also tumble down draft boards. Maybe the first question could be, how do you feel about team photos?

1. Pick up a Kardashian
Well it seems like any professional athlete can land a Kardashian. But an NBA champion ends up with Khloe. An NFL champion takes Kim. Does your prospect have what it takes to make it?

AND FINALLY ...

No comments:

Post a Comment