The NFL combine is back, but what parts of it matter, and which drills should Las Vegas Raiders fans pay attention to concerning their favorite prospects?
The NFL combine testing is about to get underway, and over 300 prospects will be able to show teams what kind of athletic upside they present.
We come into this draft season a bit blind for the Las Vegas Raiders as we aren’t fully aware of the new front office’s tendencies. However, we should look back at this combine after the draft and somewhat piece it together.
There is a tendency to devalue the combine and quote “underwear Olympics” whenever this event comes around, but that would be unwise.
Yes, the tape is and always should be the highest determining factor when looking at a prospect. However, events like the combine should help confirm what you see on tape. If a player wins with a specific style that their athletic profile doesn’t necessarily match, you may need to go back to the tape and do some more digging.
(This is, of course, assuming all things are equal and the prospect is entirely healthy during testing.)
Plenty of players have succeeded while not being gifted athletes or even just bad athletes. But those players are not the norm, and more often than not, there is a threshold for players at every position where it can become a red flag if they are poor athletically.
Also, players get to interview with teams and go through medicals, which is more important than field testing, depending on the prospect.
For this, we will be looking at each position group and which test most translate to how they can win on the field. This isn’t a 1:1 correlation, but they are valuable data points to look at. When necessary, we’ll also be looking at some top players throughout the positions to show why those particular tests matter to the best at those positions.