The NFL Scouting Combine will kick off next week in Indianapolis, with some 329 draft-eligible players invited to be tested and interviewed by all 32 NFL teams.
There’s obviously a lot of work that goes into the event, not only for the league, but for each of the teams.
NFL teams get seven draft picks allotted to them each season. Obviously, some of those change hands each year. The league also awards 32 compensatory picks each year, meaning, the draft is, in effect, eight rounds.
That means that 256 players are selected in the draft each year. It also means that a good number of the players who will attend the Combine next week will not be selected in the draft.
Of course, most of those players will then become undrafted rookie free agents, but there will be more about 200 of those signed by teams in the hours following the draft.
Just because a player isn’t at the Combine doesn’t mean he can’t make it.
The players who attend the Combine are selected with input from all 32 teams and are chosen because the teams have a “draftable” grade on them.
But that also doesn’t mean there aren’t players who slip through the cracks. For example, Steelers cornerback Beanie Bishop wasn’t invited to the Combine last season.
Bishop went undrafted, but wound up appearing in all 17 games for the Steelers last season working as a slot cornerback.
The draft is an inexact science, and it always will be, largely because there’s just so much variance.
Players can be poked, prodded and tested. But what can’t be necessarily measured is how they’ll respond to being a professional player. The NFL season is more of a grind than the college season.
You have to have a true passion for the game to become great. Talent alone won’t get it done.
And that passion is something that can be hard to measure. Every player is going to answer yes when asked if they love the game.
They would be foolish to not do so.
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at News…