rexvol
The Minister of Defense
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2006
- Messages
- 18,124
- Likes
- 54
Teams are resorting to different ways of poking and prodding the college prospects here to get through the veneer.
The neatest aspect of the combine is the time from 6-10 each night at the players' hotel, the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza downtown. That's when players in position groups go in 15-minute increments from one room housing a team's coaches and staff to another. "Speed dating,'' Mark Sanchez calls it. Each team can do a maximum of 60 interviews for the entire combine, and 16 per night. It's a dizzying flurry of activity, obviously, but something that has become more and more important to the decision-making process. A combine official blares an airhorn to start the process at 6 p.m., then another at exactly 6:15, and at 6:30, and so on, and players move from one room to another by strict appointment schedule.
But agents have worked so hard to make their players presentable that teams now have to do things to get players out of their comfort zones. This year, I heard more and more stories about teams challenging players instead of simply interviewing them or exchanging niceties.
My favorite story involved a defensive coach for one team asking Ohio State linebacker James Laurinaitis why they should pick him. "Tell me something,'' the coach said. "When is the last time a linebacker from Ohio State came to the NFL and was worth a s---?'' That shook the Buckeye out of whatever confident zone he might have entered the room in.
Come to think of it, he makes a good point. A.J. Hawk has been OK, but nothing spectacular, and he followed the likes of Bobby Carpenter and Andy Katzenmoyer.
The neatest aspect of the combine is the time from 6-10 each night at the players' hotel, the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza downtown. That's when players in position groups go in 15-minute increments from one room housing a team's coaches and staff to another. "Speed dating,'' Mark Sanchez calls it. Each team can do a maximum of 60 interviews for the entire combine, and 16 per night. It's a dizzying flurry of activity, obviously, but something that has become more and more important to the decision-making process. A combine official blares an airhorn to start the process at 6 p.m., then another at exactly 6:15, and at 6:30, and so on, and players move from one room to another by strict appointment schedule.
But agents have worked so hard to make their players presentable that teams now have to do things to get players out of their comfort zones. This year, I heard more and more stories about teams challenging players instead of simply interviewing them or exchanging niceties.
My favorite story involved a defensive coach for one team asking Ohio State linebacker James Laurinaitis why they should pick him. "Tell me something,'' the coach said. "When is the last time a linebacker from Ohio State came to the NFL and was worth a s---?'' That shook the Buckeye out of whatever confident zone he might have entered the room in.
Come to think of it, he makes a good point. A.J. Hawk has been OK, but nothing spectacular, and he followed the likes of Bobby Carpenter and Andy Katzenmoyer.
