Elite NFL Draft Prospects Opting Out of Combine Drills: What It Means for the Future

INDIANAPOLIS — At some point this week, NFL Network’s commercial touting the combine became a cyclical reminder of the league’s changing landscape with elite college players. Interspersed between televised 40-yard dashes and on-field drills — and running during ad breaks on the network day and night — it showcased Los Angeles Rams breakout rookie receiver Puka Nacua narrating the combine’s ability to make NFL teams “remember your name.”

The problem? The promotional spot for one of the NFL’s most prized offseason tentpole television events was sewn together with highlights from an all-star cast of draft prospects who haven’t done a single thing during the televised portion of the event. All three of the marquee quarterbacks — USC’s Caleb Williams, LSU’s Jayden Daniels and UNC’s Drake Maye — have pulled out of all throwing and drill work. Two elite wideouts, Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr. and LSU’s Malik Nabers, won’t run 40-yard dashes or do drill work. And then late Friday night, just prior to his position group running the 40-yard dash, the biggest star tight end in years, Brock Bowers, pulled out from that event and all of the combine drills.

(Williams and Harrison also raised some eyebrows going a step further in different respects Friday, with Williams declining to do his medical exam in Indianapolis and Harrison no-showing his scheduled media availability.)

As a collective, it brings us back to that commercial and what the NFL is now grappling with when it comes to the most elite prospects in the draft. All six of those players were significant parts of the league’s promotion of this year’s event. And by Friday, all of them had bailed on the portions of the week that actually land on a television screen.

If agents have anything to do with it, that’s a trend that could be getting cemented into the foundation of this event moving forward. That means if you want to see highlights of skill position players likely to be taken somewhere near the top of the first round, you’re not likely to see any of them happening on a field during the week of the combine.

“We’re seeing it become the opt-out generation,” one AFC general manager said Friday. “But I guess we could also ask how many head coaches aren’t here, how many general managers aren’t here, or get here late and leave early. It might say more about the evolution of the combine than a generation of players deciding what they won’t do.”

Added an NFC executive, “Some of it is these guys not wanting to be overexposed.”

Georgia’s Brock Bowers was a spectator at the tight end group’s drills at the NFL scouting combine on Friday. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

That’s all a bit of a debate, depending who you talk to across the league. Some hard-liners spew battery acid when it comes to the subject. But if you’ve been around the NFL long enough, you have the institutional memory to know that group is shrinking in membership. Some yearning for the old days of everyone-doing-everything are cycling out of the game, while others are shrugging and pointing to lower levels of the game changing.

“Every step has been eroded over time,” one high-ranking AFC executive said. “Guys opt out of high school games, college bowls, all-star games, combine, pro days. It’s the new normal. The arrogance of it all. And it’s only going to get worse.”

Or better, if you talk to agents who are protecting bottom lines and advising their players to avoid anything that has more downside than upside. A good example of that would be agencies such as Rosenhaus Sports and Athletes First instructing their clients to decline cognitive testing such as the S2 and Wonderlic exams. Historically, the Wonderlic had a propensity to see the worst scores leaked to the media in what was often framed as attempts to smear the draft value of players. And last year during the draft preparations, former Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud and others had poor S2 scores become a significant source of media coverage. That has led to a wide swath of agents advising their clients to refuse the tests — although to date, only Athletes First and Rosenhaus Sports have publicly confirmed that stance.

As one agent said this week: “Players are making better decisions when they only have something minimal, or nothing, to gain. And for a few guys, especially the best players, a lot of the parts of the combine are like that.”

Of course, the NFL has seen this coming for a while. As the league built the combine into an offseason tentpole event for television — becoming a precursor to the “Christmas in April” nature of the draft — there has been some growing discontent about the operation. Not so much from the NFL team owners or league office, which continue to imagine the combine becoming a traveling roadshow and larger driver of revenues. But definitely among the unpaid actors in the show, comprised of players who don’t really get any compensation out of the event beyond an opportunity to raise their profile and potentially improve their draft position.

For most, that’s more than enough for the tradeoff. Maybe even for the vast majority of the 300-plus players who travel to Indianapolis to be put through a rigorous medical exam and a battery of drills and interviews. But for the absolute elites who represent the spine of how a television show is built around the event, the tradeoff has appeared to be diminishing with each passing year.

This week, it reached a peak, with the three top quarterbacks pulling from the show, along with two elite receivers and the unquestioned top tight end. Next year, it could be more. All of which leaves the NFL with the challenge of reimagining an event — and the commercials touting it — that could lack the very best talent the television audience covets most.

2024-03-02 02:33:00
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