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NFL’s Veteran Combine Idea Is Ridiculous

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In about six weeks on Mar. 22, the NFL is going to hold the first ever veteran combine. Veteran free agents (which reportedly will include players like Vince Young, Tim Tebow and Michael Sam) will travel to Arizona and go through a number of drills in the hopes of signing with a club and re-igniting their careers. Anyone interested can watch the live coverage of the event on television, or even purchase tickets to see the workouts themselves.

The NFL has come up with some head-scratchers before, but this one most definitely takes the cake.

I mean, I understand why this makes sense for the NFL. This gives the league something else to have people tune in to and something else to sell tickets for. But I am having a hard time figuring out why this would work for any of the 32 teams.

If you’re an NFL team, why are you worried about how some veteran free agent can run a three-cone drill when you can just watch actual game tape on him? That’s what any team is going to care about. Combine warriors are fun to watch and all, but ultimately no one cares unless they can translate that into on-field production. Tebow posting an impressive 40-yard dash time doesn’t make his terrible regular-season stats look any better. Young cranking out 30 bench press reps doesn’t mean he’s suddenly become a better quarterback.

All this veteran combine is, really, is taking all the private workouts teams conduct on their own and putting them onto one televised field so the NFL can make a few extra bucks. The NFL makes a pretty penny off the rookie combine and draft, so why not try to monetize the guys barely hanging on in the league already?

Ultimately, I think this idea is doomed for failure. People get into the rookie combine and draft because not only do they get all the coverage and hype, but it’s also because they’re new players. There’s no professional game tape to watch, so the combine is really all NFL scouts have. They’re fresh unknowns who will help shape the course of the league for the next decade. Veteran free agents don’t do that. I can’t see where anyone is going to care all that much.

There might be a diamond in the rough that emerges from this veteran combine, and if so it’ll make for a good story. Truth be told, I’ll probably check it out. But there’s only so much rough people can handle, and unless there’s some serious marketing hype built up for this, I don’t think it will last long at all.

Doug Green is a Featured Writer for www.RantSports.com covering the Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL. Follow him on Twitter @DGreenNFL.

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