cowboyjoe
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Pro Football Weekly: Owners might consider moving N.F.L. draft to late February.
DD.comment: One thing about moving the draft up two months. Check NFL.com or ESPN's N.F.L. section, they remain very vibrant and relevant in March, April and early May, mostly due to the tremendous amount of fan interest in the N.F.L. draft. If the N.F.L. wraps the draft up by early March, they'll have 4 or 5 months (instead of 2 or 3) when the league gets very little media coverage and fans will just ignore the product in large numbers. We see this first hand, as our own traffic takes a huge nose-dive in mid May. Sure there is free agency, but most of the top free agents that fans care about are signed in the first 7 to 9 days of the process.
Also, we agree that all the Pro Day's can be taxing for scouts, having to go from one school to another. And, with the running backs and cornerbacks (as a group) running so poorly at the last Combine, we can foresee a scenario where fewer skill position players even bother to run at the Combine (meaning the N.F.L. wastes money bringing them in). They might just claim they "tweaked their hamstring" and wait for Pro Day, so they can be hand-timed on a blazing fast track at, or near, their own college. What we think could be a viable option to replace all these Pro Days, is a group (7 to 10) of quick "Regional Combines" held for all the prospects that didn't get invited to Indianapolis. So, for example, instead of N.F.L. scouts trekking from one Northeastern school to another in March, all the prospects from schools like Syracuse, Pitt, Connecticut, Hofstra, Delaware, Penn State, Boston College, ect. can workout in one place and be electronically timed. These Regional Combine's could be held at a college (i.e. Syracuse's Carrier Dome) or they can be held at the indoor practice facility/bubble owned by the New York Giants or the Philadelphia Eagles. Same thing could be repeated in all parts of the U.S., with Southern and Western teams being able to host these regional Combine's outside. Also, since these Combines would be wrapped up in one day, all it would cost is the price of a train ticket, which could be covered by agents or the league. We know we have some daily readers from NFL.com, hopefully they can bring up this Regional Combine idea to commissioner Roger Goodell, assuming he hasn't considered it already?
DD.comment: One thing about moving the draft up two months. Check NFL.com or ESPN's N.F.L. section, they remain very vibrant and relevant in March, April and early May, mostly due to the tremendous amount of fan interest in the N.F.L. draft. If the N.F.L. wraps the draft up by early March, they'll have 4 or 5 months (instead of 2 or 3) when the league gets very little media coverage and fans will just ignore the product in large numbers. We see this first hand, as our own traffic takes a huge nose-dive in mid May. Sure there is free agency, but most of the top free agents that fans care about are signed in the first 7 to 9 days of the process.
Also, we agree that all the Pro Day's can be taxing for scouts, having to go from one school to another. And, with the running backs and cornerbacks (as a group) running so poorly at the last Combine, we can foresee a scenario where fewer skill position players even bother to run at the Combine (meaning the N.F.L. wastes money bringing them in). They might just claim they "tweaked their hamstring" and wait for Pro Day, so they can be hand-timed on a blazing fast track at, or near, their own college. What we think could be a viable option to replace all these Pro Days, is a group (7 to 10) of quick "Regional Combines" held for all the prospects that didn't get invited to Indianapolis. So, for example, instead of N.F.L. scouts trekking from one Northeastern school to another in March, all the prospects from schools like Syracuse, Pitt, Connecticut, Hofstra, Delaware, Penn State, Boston College, ect. can workout in one place and be electronically timed. These Regional Combine's could be held at a college (i.e. Syracuse's Carrier Dome) or they can be held at the indoor practice facility/bubble owned by the New York Giants or the Philadelphia Eagles. Same thing could be repeated in all parts of the U.S., with Southern and Western teams being able to host these regional Combine's outside. Also, since these Combines would be wrapped up in one day, all it would cost is the price of a train ticket, which could be covered by agents or the league. We know we have some daily readers from NFL.com, hopefully they can bring up this Regional Combine idea to commissioner Roger Goodell, assuming he hasn't considered it already?