NFL Combine pokes, prods prospects as draft looms
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NFL Combine pokes, prods prospects as draft looms
By Kevin Acee
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. February 22, 2009
INDIANAPOLIS – Troy Kropog rose before 6 a.m. Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn., and drove the five hours to central Indiana.
Before noon, the offensive tackle from Tulane checked in at the Crowne Plaza hotel and almost immediately got on a small bus that took him to a hospital, where he underwent an EKG and chest X-rays and gave an extensive medical history.
He was back in his hotel room four hours later, attended an orientation meeting shortly thereafter and then spent three hours in a massive room with representatives from every NFL team seated at tables. Players moved from table to table being interviewed for 15 minutes at a time by teams that requested to speak to them.
“I did the speed dating last night,” Connecticut running back Donald Brown quipped.
Kropog talked with eight teams before the session ended at 11 p.m. He got to sleep at midnight.
After a 5:45 a.m. wake-up call, he took a drug test. Then he had breakfast, crossed the street to Lucas Oil Stadium and endured a few more hours of doctors from every team poking and pulling on every limb, bending every joint and asking every question.
He was called back at 3 p.m. for an MRI on a place he didn't know he had an issue. Doctors wanted to run tests on one of his knees.
“They're making me nervous,” Kropog said. “They're like, 'Are you sure you've never done anything here?' I'm like, 'I don't think so. Should I know something?' ”
Said Tennessee running back Arian Foster: “If you didn't have something sore, you're sore now.”
Some players are summoned for as many as six MRI exams and CAT scans.
“I got off easy,” Kropog said.
Teams don't leave anything to chance with players in which they are about to invest, in many cases, millions of dollars.
And while the teams have been watching many of these players for almost a year, studied them on film, observed and talked to them at the lead-up to all-star games last month, the Combine is where NFL teams get down to the nitty gritty as the homestretch to April's draft commences.
The NFL Combine – officially the National Invitational Camp – is often called the ultimate four-day job interview.
Every job applicant is in one place, in their skivvies at times, laid bare physically and mentally in front of their potential employers.
“I don't know of a better way to process it,” Arizona Cardinals General Manager Rod Graves said.
This year, 328 players are here trying to impress NFL teams enough that they improve their draft stock or get into the draft at all.
Every scout, general manager, head coach and front-office haggler is here. Every agent certified to represent NFL players is here, not only to prepare their new clients but to attend a mandatory meeting.
The convergence makes for a busy week of negotiating in Circle City. In the stadium, hotels, restaurants and bars, teams let other teams know who they might be willing to trade, and agents quietly and not so quietly shop their players for the free-agency period that will begin Friday. Agents troll for clients, some even stealing clients from other agents.
Most agents dread coming here, where access to their clients is severely limited and the weather is almost always icy and gray.
Only NFL personnel are allowed to watch most workouts, as those who run the Combine try to provide the most unfettered working environment for the players.
“There's a lot of pressure on these guys,” Graves said.
Players are rotated into town and through their four-day stay in 11 groups over seven days.
After two days of medical exams and psychological tests and three days of interviews with teams and a session with the media, the fourth day is when the players work out on the field, with all the head coaches, assistants and personnel people watching from the stands.
“It's like a kid in the candy shop for a lot of us,” Atlanta Falcons General Manager Thomas Dimitroff said.
Players leave town after their workout.
Two months will remain until the draft when the Combine concludes with defensive backs working out on Tuesday. Teams will fly coaches and scouts and GMs to various schools to watch players work out again. Then there will be private workouts. Players will be flown to teams' complexes for interviews. Rumors and lies and other misinformation will ensue until the draft on April 25 and 26.
But for the most part, the real work began here. Scouts have been watching these players since the previous spring. But this is the first time that the NFL coaches are seeing the players.
All but about 30 players who are drafted each year attended the Combine.
Jeff Foster, president of National Football Scouting, which runs the Combine, tells players at their first meeting here that they are being watched at all times. And they are.
The NFS has three scouts who act as a sort of house mom and are with the players almost constantly. The scouts take notes on how a player follows directions or responds to a question or on their manners.
Teams will later call the NFS staff and ask questions. If a player was delinquent with paperwork or caused a problem, Foster will tell the team.
All expenses (down to mileage and valet fees for players who drive to Indianapolis) are paid by a nonprofit corporation to which all 32 NFL teams contribute the estimated $2 million it takes to put on the Combine.
That's a fair amount of money, but it is much less than it would cost to do it individually. And it is far less than the cost of not having enough information on a player.
“If a team makes a mistake on one kid, it will cost them more than to put this (Combine) on,” Foster said. “We can save them millions of dollars.”
By Kevin Acee
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. February 22, 2009
INDIANAPOLIS – Troy Kropog rose before 6 a.m. Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn., and drove the five hours to central Indiana.
Before noon, the offensive tackle from Tulane checked in at the Crowne Plaza hotel and almost immediately got on a small bus that took him to a hospital, where he underwent an EKG and chest X-rays and gave an extensive medical history.
He was back in his hotel room four hours later, attended an orientation meeting shortly thereafter and then spent three hours in a massive room with representatives from every NFL team seated at tables. Players moved from table to table being interviewed for 15 minutes at a time by teams that requested to speak to them.
“I did the speed dating last night,” Connecticut running back Donald Brown quipped.
Kropog talked with eight teams before the session ended at 11 p.m. He got to sleep at midnight.
After a 5:45 a.m. wake-up call, he took a drug test. Then he had breakfast, crossed the street to Lucas Oil Stadium and endured a few more hours of doctors from every team poking and pulling on every limb, bending every joint and asking every question.
He was called back at 3 p.m. for an MRI on a place he didn't know he had an issue. Doctors wanted to run tests on one of his knees.
“They're making me nervous,” Kropog said. “They're like, 'Are you sure you've never done anything here?' I'm like, 'I don't think so. Should I know something?' ”
Said Tennessee running back Arian Foster: “If you didn't have something sore, you're sore now.”
Some players are summoned for as many as six MRI exams and CAT scans.
“I got off easy,” Kropog said.
Teams don't leave anything to chance with players in which they are about to invest, in many cases, millions of dollars.
And while the teams have been watching many of these players for almost a year, studied them on film, observed and talked to them at the lead-up to all-star games last month, the Combine is where NFL teams get down to the nitty gritty as the homestretch to April's draft commences.
The NFL Combine – officially the National Invitational Camp – is often called the ultimate four-day job interview.
Every job applicant is in one place, in their skivvies at times, laid bare physically and mentally in front of their potential employers.
“I don't know of a better way to process it,” Arizona Cardinals General Manager Rod Graves said.
This year, 328 players are here trying to impress NFL teams enough that they improve their draft stock or get into the draft at all.
Every scout, general manager, head coach and front-office haggler is here. Every agent certified to represent NFL players is here, not only to prepare their new clients but to attend a mandatory meeting.
The convergence makes for a busy week of negotiating in Circle City. In the stadium, hotels, restaurants and bars, teams let other teams know who they might be willing to trade, and agents quietly and not so quietly shop their players for the free-agency period that will begin Friday. Agents troll for clients, some even stealing clients from other agents.
Most agents dread coming here, where access to their clients is severely limited and the weather is almost always icy and gray.
Only NFL personnel are allowed to watch most workouts, as those who run the Combine try to provide the most unfettered working environment for the players.
“There's a lot of pressure on these guys,” Graves said.
Players are rotated into town and through their four-day stay in 11 groups over seven days.
After two days of medical exams and psychological tests and three days of interviews with teams and a session with the media, the fourth day is when the players work out on the field, with all the head coaches, assistants and personnel people watching from the stands.
“It's like a kid in the candy shop for a lot of us,” Atlanta Falcons General Manager Thomas Dimitroff said.
Players leave town after their workout.
Two months will remain until the draft when the Combine concludes with defensive backs working out on Tuesday. Teams will fly coaches and scouts and GMs to various schools to watch players work out again. Then there will be private workouts. Players will be flown to teams' complexes for interviews. Rumors and lies and other misinformation will ensue until the draft on April 25 and 26.
But for the most part, the real work began here. Scouts have been watching these players since the previous spring. But this is the first time that the NFL coaches are seeing the players.
All but about 30 players who are drafted each year attended the Combine.
Jeff Foster, president of National Football Scouting, which runs the Combine, tells players at their first meeting here that they are being watched at all times. And they are.
The NFS has three scouts who act as a sort of house mom and are with the players almost constantly. The scouts take notes on how a player follows directions or responds to a question or on their manners.
Teams will later call the NFS staff and ask questions. If a player was delinquent with paperwork or caused a problem, Foster will tell the team.
All expenses (down to mileage and valet fees for players who drive to Indianapolis) are paid by a nonprofit corporation to which all 32 NFL teams contribute the estimated $2 million it takes to put on the Combine.
That's a fair amount of money, but it is much less than it would cost to do it individually. And it is far less than the cost of not having enough information on a player.
“If a team makes a mistake on one kid, it will cost them more than to put this (Combine) on,” Foster said. “We can save them millions of dollars.”
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