Those players attending next week's NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis will be subjected to a battery of physical and mental tests -- all of which helps NFL teams in the big picture of scouting prior to April's NFL Draft.
The Combine has gone from a closed event attended only by NFL personnel and coaching staffs to one that is increasingly covered by the media (including Atlantafalcons.com) and now, parts are televised by the NFL Network from the RCA Dome.
Billy Devaney, the Falcons' Senior Personnel Director, has seen the Combine grow from its' roots in a 1982 camp conducted in Tampa, Fla., to today's well-organized "job interview" for prospective NFL players.
According to Devaney, the first part of the process for the players when they get to Indianapolis is the most important - the physical exam.
"The biggest benefit to the clubs is the thoroughness of the physicals which are given," he said. "The information you get on the players is more important than the on-field workouts. They are studied from head to toe by team doctors from around the league. They are given extensive physicals and you hear every year -- things will show up on 10 to 15 players because of MRIs that are done for the first time on every part of their body."
"A player may show up with a problem with a disc in his back, which he was able to play with for two or three years, or a problem with a disc in his neck," Devaney gave as examples of players who find out about previously undiscovered injuries. "The player will say that he never had any problem with it. He's never had an MRI done on it before and they find a narrowing there or a disc problem."
The investment that a NFL team puts into each player on the roster means that the information gleaned from the exams is crucial. To that end, the Falcons send their entire staff of team doctors and certified athletic trainers to pour over the information on each player.
"When you talk about the amount of money that teams spend investing in drafting and scouting -- if you find out medical information that might limit a player -- that in itself is worth having the Combine," he said.
Also, the players have their official heights and weights measured. Don't believe what you read in your favorite team's media guide; the measurements can give personnel staffs some key information to check on.
"Nobody pays attention to the heights and weights in the (college) media guides and programs," he said about the official published numbers. "They are always inflated and they are always bigger and faster. We do have verified measurements on 99 percent of the guys going into the Combine through National Scouting -- the company we work with (there are two main scouting services for NFL teams) -- they get all of the verified measurables in each player's junior year."
Devaney says that the weight is something that is looked at in comparison to the earlier verified numbers.
"Is there a drastic change from junior to senior year, or since it's been a few months since they have played, have they gained 20 or 30 pounds -- is it sloppy weight?, " he said about the comparisons made. "Any drastic change, high or low, is a signal for teams to check to see what has happened with them."
Each position group will go through a strength test of bench-pressing 225 pounds. Again, comparison can give the current state of an NFL prospect's level of fitness and work habits.
"If an offensive lineman who is 6-4, 300 pounds bench presses 12 or 13 times -- let's say the same amount as a defensive back -- this player might not be a worker since there is no reason why a big guy like that shouldn't do more," he said. "This could be a red flag of a problem somewhere, whether it is work habits or an injury in his shoulder that has not shown up. If a player does great, you are not going to change his grade or like the guy better because he can bench-press the building."
Players will also go through a series of agility drills, shuttles of 20 and 60 yards, three-cone drills, vertical jump, broad jump and the famous 40-yard dash.
"You get information out of each of the drills," said Devaney. "Each of the drills measure different physical traits. They run the 40-yard dash -- you know that they can run fast. The short shuttle (20 yards) is a quickness drill -- you don't need speed, but you do need flexibility and the ability to bend. You could have a wide receiver who runs a great 40 time and he runs a horrible short shuttle. He might be stiff in the hips, doesn't have great flexibility where you have to bend, touch the line, go back and run five yards bending all of the time. A stiff player is not going to be able to do that. That player has good straight-line speed, but he is not going to be a good route-runner."
There is a correlation between speed guys who can run and have a good vertical jump because it's explosion" he continued. "That will tell you if a guy doesn't play fast, but he looks fast on tape. You look at the vertical jump and that explains it -- he doesn't have any explosion in his legs."
Another part of the overall picture is the interview process that teams go through with players in the evenings after the physical work is done.
"You are starting to narrow the list of guys who may potentially draft and you are trying to get a feel for them and their personalities," he said. "What we don't want to do is read too much into the interview. A player comes in and he is shy or introverted. He may be innately smart, but he is not very outgoing or doesn't have great verbal skills. At the same time, you get players who are bubbly and expressive. They might not be very smart; they might just have great communication skills."
"You are putting them in a setting that they are not very comfortable in," Devaney said about the interviews. "They are comfortable in football settings. They are thinking that every word they say can be taken out of context and they know that there is a lot riding on it. They are out of their natural environment; they're athletes and football players. You don't want to get too high or too low on a player based on an interview."
The players also take the famous Wonderlic test as administered by National Scouting. The 12-minute, 50-question exam is another tool used to hone opinions on players.
"That is just another piece of the puzzle," he said. "Certain positions have certain criteria and we want that player to be in that range. A player may be smart and have innate intelligence and he may have poor reading or testing skills. If someone tests low, we want to follow it up and give our own version of the test to him."
"We ask their coaches and tell them that they did not score well on the Wonderlic and it may shock them because the individual may be one of their smartest players - he has no problem playing football, running the defense for them, etc.," Devaney continued. "It's just a piece, not the end-all by any means."
The best way to view the Combine is as one small part of the overall year-round scouting process that includes game film on players, interviews with college coaches, Senior Bowl and other all-star games, school Pro Days -- a constant evaluation that is honed, not drastically changed by a player's performance in Indianapolis.
All of the teams will say the same things to their staff at their scouting meetings prior to the Combine, Devaney advised.
"They'll say, 'Don't get fired up or change your opinion about someone based on the Combine. They run around in shorts and t-shirts. If a player works out great, but is not good on film, don't make him out to be a great football player and by the same token, there might be a slow linebacker who runs a 5.0-flat (in the 40-yard dash) and looks awful, and you turn on the tape and he makes plays, so don't get too high or low based on what you see in a 20-minute workout that does not have any contact. A total of 99 percent of our evaluation will come off of us sitting in a room evaluating game tape."
