NFL Scouting Combine: Day Six
by 
David Kindervater on February 27th, 2007
After almost one week of writing about nothing but the NFL Scouting Combine, I was beginning to feel like I could start a side blog on the Combine and nothing else. The proceedings came to a close today as the DBs (corners and safeties) completed their drills on the RCA Dome floor. This Draft class is loaded at safety, but the corners aren’t as strong. At least in overview. There are potentially four first-round safeties in this class, but we may only see one corner taken in the top 10 or 15 picks. Here are the best results from today:
Defensive Backs: 40-yard Dash (Chris Houston, Arkansas, 4.32); 60-yard Shuttle (Craig Dahl, North Dakota State, 11.03); 20-yard Shuttle (Sabby Piscitelli, Oregon State, 3.90); Three Cone (Leon Hall, Michigan, 6.50); Vert Jump (Gerald Alexander, Boise State, 41); Broad Jump (Darren Stone, Maine, 11′); Bench Press (Chris Houston, 27)
Eight players ran in the 4.3s, so obviously this is a very fast group. But, did you know there is no such thing as a single, official time in the 40-yard Dash at the Combine? That being said, the 40-time remains the most-discussed testing drill, and is often referenced as if it were some universal gauge of ability. Of course, that is hardly the case. Those who participate in the 40 at the Combine actually run twice, and on each run they are timed by two hand-held stopwatches and one electronic timer which is actually initiated by hand on the player’s first movement). That’s potentially six different results. Combine data put together by National Scouting includes all six of those times for each player, but no single official time. Team scouts and coaches have various approaches for getting the 40-time they use from those six timings. Some use averages. Some throw out the fastest and slowest and then average the rest. Some ignore the whole thing and use a time taken by their own scout. When NFL Network began televising the workouts in recent years, viewers were warned that the times posted on the screen were unofficial. Usually, the time on the screen was one of the electronic times. Still, one general manager who was watching the TV coverage from his team’s office was startled when a player was credited on the screen with a 4.44-second time. His scouts previously nixed the player because he was too slow to play wide receiver for that team. The GM called his scout on a cell phone on the Combine floor at the RCA Dome to inquire about the discrepancy. The scout said his staff clocked the player in no faster than 4.58 that day. So their personnel files show 4.58 as the “official” 40-time at the Combine. So, beware any 40-yard time that is labeled as “official” from the Combine.
Thanks to my friends at NFLDraftScout.com for that information. In deference to the players, NFLDraftScout.com uses the best verifiable — or listed — time from the Combine unless it is conspicuously skewed from the other times, which sometimes happens when a hand timer has an itchy trigger finger on the stopwatch. However, the times are usually well-grouped.
Tags: bench-press, broad-jump, craig-dahl, dbs, defensive-backs, leon-hall, national-scouting, NFL Scouting Combine, nfl-career, rca-dome, sabby-piscitelli, stopwatches| 2.5 |
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