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Greg Gabriel was a NY Giants Scout for 16 years working with personnel people such as George Young, Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Dan Reeves, Tom Coughlin and Ernie Accorsi, later he became Bears the Director of College Scouting for 9 years, and somewhere in-between he spent 6 years on the NFL College Advisory Committee. Now he is writer for the National Football Post. There aren't too many people with his pedigree sharing their thoughts on the prospects and the inner working of the draft process so I look forward to his articles when they come out. Today he put out an article called NFL Combine: the merits of rising and falling stock It's definetely worth a read if your wondering what to make of all the post combine hype sure to follow some of the players who blew it up this week. Below is an excerpt.
Contrary to what you may read or hear, players' “stock” doesn’t necessarily rise or fall instantly after their workout at the Combine. What happens is it becomes an alert to do further research on the player.
As I have written before, players are expected to do well in Indianapolis. Most have spent the last 6 to 8 weeks at training facilities preparing for their workout. On a daily basis they have rehearsed everything they will do at the Combine so many times that it almost becomes second nature. For example, RGIII running in the 4.4’s did not help his stock. He was expected to run that fast. When you look at his history, you will find that as a freshman, he was an All-American 110-meter high hurdler at Baylor. You don’t achieve that status unless you are indeed fast. The red flag would have been if RGIII ran in the 4.5’s or 4.6’s.
Scouts go into the Combine with an opinion as to how certain players will perform. It’s when they either do better or worse than anticipated that causes scouts to re-evaluate their opinion. For instance, A.J. Jenkins, the receiver from Illinois, had a very steady career showing improvement every year. He was looked upon as a solid draft choice. When he worked out on Sunday, his numbers for every drill were consistently near the top of the receiver class showing us that he may be a better athlete than we anticipated.
What many scouts will do is go back and look at more tape and see if he is a better player than they originally thought. In many cases scouts find something they didn’t see before and raise his grade. It can also be said that when you go back and watch more tape you may find some things that can hurt his grade also. This happens because when you are doing a “final” review of the tape you aren’t necessarily watching all the prospects at that school, just the player in question. When you are watching one player and concentrating on that player you often see more than you did the first time. Remember one thing, when you have questions about a player, go back and watch more tape, it will always tell you the truth. Full Article
Contrary to what you may read or hear, players' “stock” doesn’t necessarily rise or fall instantly after their workout at the Combine. What happens is it becomes an alert to do further research on the player.
As I have written before, players are expected to do well in Indianapolis. Most have spent the last 6 to 8 weeks at training facilities preparing for their workout. On a daily basis they have rehearsed everything they will do at the Combine so many times that it almost becomes second nature. For example, RGIII running in the 4.4’s did not help his stock. He was expected to run that fast. When you look at his history, you will find that as a freshman, he was an All-American 110-meter high hurdler at Baylor. You don’t achieve that status unless you are indeed fast. The red flag would have been if RGIII ran in the 4.5’s or 4.6’s.
Scouts go into the Combine with an opinion as to how certain players will perform. It’s when they either do better or worse than anticipated that causes scouts to re-evaluate their opinion. For instance, A.J. Jenkins, the receiver from Illinois, had a very steady career showing improvement every year. He was looked upon as a solid draft choice. When he worked out on Sunday, his numbers for every drill were consistently near the top of the receiver class showing us that he may be a better athlete than we anticipated.
What many scouts will do is go back and look at more tape and see if he is a better player than they originally thought. In many cases scouts find something they didn’t see before and raise his grade. It can also be said that when you go back and watch more tape you may find some things that can hurt his grade also. This happens because when you are doing a “final” review of the tape you aren’t necessarily watching all the prospects at that school, just the player in question. When you are watching one player and concentrating on that player you often see more than you did the first time. Remember one thing, when you have questions about a player, go back and watch more tape, it will always tell you the truth. Full Article