The NFL combine is approaching. It will be held in Indianapolis from February 27 to March 2. As a prelude to the draft, it garners attention to top college players. They are sized up, put through their paces in drills, and, to some extent, tested on their football skills.
With all the hype, it's certainly fun to watch and review, and if the guys you'd like to see your team draft test well, it can be positive (to an extent). The problem is, while it provides some information, not much of it is worth the effort those young players and the staff of every NFL team put into it.
Here, we'll explore some pros and cons of the overall Combine experience and extravaganza. We'll discuss what the NFL teams can garner from this exercise, and what weight they should allocate to it in their evaluation of potential NFL players. Let's start with the pluses of the Combine.
What the Patriots can get from the 2025 NFL Combine
While the combine is overhyped, it is a good show and does provide some value. The official, not phony college PR-room-inflated height and weight measurements serve a good purpose. Height and arm length are examples of offensive linemen.
"Length," so-called, for an O-lineman, specifically height and arm length, is a helpful statistic. An O-lineman who played tackle in college but is less than 6'4" tall with shorter than about 33" arms will likely be projected and then drafted to play on the interior.
If you play left tackle on an island, length is a critical component of the physical profile you're looking for. A classic Patriots' example of a failed first-round tackle pick, due to a great extent to his size limitations, was the Patriots' 2018 first-round draft pick, Isaiah Wynn from Georgia.
Wynn measured 6'3", 313 pounds with decent arm length at 33 and 3/8ths" long. nfl.com had this to say about Wynn, and it is a telling comment,
"Wynn's short, stout, powerful build and mobility make his NFL future at guard, but his versatility has helped him meet the team's need at left tackle..."
The Patriots ignored that viewpoint and slotted Wynn in as their left tackle, while his size was projected far better to guard or even center. Yet, even in those positions, he'd be undersized. Wynn could neither play left or right tackle nor play guard when he was on the field. To make matters worse, Bill Belichick passed on Lamar Jackson with that pick (and another). It cost him his job.
Where combine numbers can fool the Patriots
Other numbers, such as shuttle runs, vertical leaps, etc., may also be a bit helpful, but they're all done outside of a football game and, as such, have limited usefulness. The one that catches maybe the most attention and has pizzazz is the 40-yard dash. It's always a central feature.
Having decent speed is indeed a helpful consideration. Teams in the market, e.g., for an X or outside wide receiver, will absolutely look to that number. Unfortunately, it can be a big tease and lead you down a primrose path to drafting a speed guy and falling flat on your proverbial face.
A glaring example was the 2019 Patriots' 2019 second-round pick, Tyquan Thornton. The rail-thin, 6'2", 181-pounder caught a mere 39 passes for 385 yards and three touchdowns in parts of three seasons before being released. His 4.28, 40-yard dash time entranced Bill Belichick. Added 2019 to first-round pick, guard Cole Strange, it was as bad a top-two picks as any in Patriots' history.
The moral of this story is to take the Combine numbers with a grain of salt. Look at the film to see how a player performs against his best competition. Also, while it's not measured at the combine, stay away from this bogus stat, as well, "contested catch" success.
While these college catches look good, the statistics are largely fraudulent. Too many "contested catches" means the player wasn't getting open in college, and as such, he's not going to get open in the NFL either. Perhaps the most glaring and painful example for the Patriots recently was N'Keal Harry, their first-round pick in 2019.
In 33 games in Foxborough, Harry caught only 57 passes for 598 yards and four touchdowns. He was prized for "contested catches" and proved a draft bust of the highest magnitude. This leads to this conclusion: The Patriots should garner what they can from the Combine but don't place too much value on it. That road is fraught with immense danger in the NFL draft.