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The NFL Rookie Pageant

Authored by Andrew Perna - 7th March, 2006 - 5:33 pm

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Football is considered by many people to be the most brutal of the mainstream sports in America. Players are expected to steamroll over one another on their way to the end zone, or to use their brute force to prevent them from doing so. So can some please explain to me why the NFL Combine has become the closest thing sports has to a beauty pageant?

At the RCA Dome in Indianapolis last week, team scouts, coaches, and general managers lined up to salivate over the competing rookies like teenage boys at a Victoria Secret fashion show. What began many years ago as a collection of college football players getting physicals has become a physical, mental, and psychological grilling of the NFL?s top prospects.

I understand the combine both helps, and hurts many college football players each and every year, but did it change the Chargers? mind on taking Ryan Leaf? Did the combine?s physical and mental tests help the NFL scouts see the unflappable skill of Tom Brady?

Sure Reggie Bush can run an insanely fast 40 time, but will he be able to run that same speed in the final minutes of the fourth quarter in the final week of the season?

Defensive-end Mike Kudla of Ohio State may be able to bench press a hell of a lot of weight, a hell of a lot of times, but will he be able to push past Kansas City?s offensive line to reach Trent Green?

Did the psychological test of Maurice Clarett include a question about whether or not he thought he would find himself in police custody within the next year or so?

Then there?s my personal favorite, the Wonderlic test. All participants are given twelve minutes to answer fifty questions. That gives players less than fifteen seconds per question. No wonder the average score is below fifty percent. I don?t know where you went to school, but where I did that?s a failing grade.

I?m not saying NFL players aren?t intelligent, or have any reason not to be, but who cares if a guy knows how long it would take a car traveling fifty miles an hour to travel 125 miles? If they can play football better than most, then I want them on my team.

When I was looking for a job as a columnist at RealGM they didn?t evaluate me on my ability to do trigonometry or name the eleventh president of the United States?

If they had you wouldn?t be reading this right now!

In twenty years I expect the NFL top prospects to have to perform another talent aside from football, sing a Stevie Wonder song of their choice, and most likely parade around the RCA Dome in the latest Calvin Klein swimwear.

At least in 2026 ESPN 11 would have something to televise instead of the national hopscotch championships.

Andrew.Perna@RealGM.com

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