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Though it won't be for several months yet, let's talk about one of the fundamental events of the draft cycle, the combine.
Which players, and how many, are invited to the combine?Around 350 players will go to Indianapolis in late February, but they won't all find out they got the call that month. Combine invitations used to come in two waves. The first wave of invitations for about 250 seniors came in late December, and the second wave of around 100 came out right after the early entries were certified in mid-January (Jan. 15, to be exact). The last couple years, National Football Scouting (which runs the combine) didn't release the full list of invitees about two weeks before the combine, with invites trickling out between mid-December and early February. The process has changed now that the NFL is being extra careful not to invite players with domestic violence on their respective records.
How are they invited? The last few years, players have received their invitations through their school email addresses. However, NFS now provides the information to the team's coaching staff, then allows coaches to notify the players when they so choose. They do this so that, in the era of the BCS Championship, the team can control the players getting their respective invitations before playing in their bowl games. The thinking is that it improves the chances the team's players actually play in the game. Players earn this invite by majority vote of all 32 teams, which is also new. In the past, a representative of scouts got the vote, but now all 32 teams have an equal voice.
Can a good agent, or a well-connected coach, get a player invited?
No. No matter how powerful your agent, or how established your coach, you're pretty much out of luck if you want to lobby National to include a player.
Jeff Foster
, who heads National, is a no-nonsense kind of guy who doesn't play a lot of politics, much to his credit. That wasn't always true. Believe it or not,
49ers head coach
Kyle Shanahan
made the 2003 combine list despite
a whopping 33 receptions in four years
at Duke and Texas before going on to his coaching career. Foster's predecessor was a lot more open to being swayed by the old boy network, but no longer. So if your son's teammate tells you his agent told him he could get him into the combine, show him this newsletter.
Who gets to go in and watch the proceedings? Pretty much, it's limited to NFL scouts, coaches and other administrators, though college coaches and even some combine trainers can get guest passes; a limited number of major media can attend; and the league is starting to sell tickets to fans who want to see it live. That sounds exciting, but I don't recommend it. It's actually a little repetitive and boring. But maybe that's just me.
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Neil Stratton
