NFL’s new combine drills may help scouts, attract more fans

INDIANAPOLIS – National Invitation Camp President Jeff Foster spent the past couple months debating how to improve the annual NFL scouting combine.

His team settled on adding more than a dozen new drills, intended to help coaches and scouts evaluate draft prospects in an ever evolving game, make things more competitive for players and more entertaining for fans.

Foster figures it’s a win for everyone.

“First, we want to make sure the drills are reflective of today’s game,” he said Monday as players started arriving in Indianapolis for a week full of poking and prodding, testing, workouts and interviews. “We’ve been using the same drills for many, many years, which is great to use as comparative analysis. But we also wanted to make sure we were updating the drills to reflect how the game has changed. The second piece was to add some elements to it that would be more attractive to the players and the fans.”

What’s new?

Quarterbacks will be throwing end zone fade routes to receivers and tight ends and all three player groups will participate in a “timed smoke drill,” which examines how players adjust to pre-snap reads.

Running backs will now be tested on angle routes and drilled on using their eyes to navigate physical obstacles.

Defensive linemen will go through the run-and-club drill, using their hands and spin moves against five stand-up tackling bags – one of the most popular position group drills in training camp.

In all, 16 new drills have been added, with a handful of old standbys eliminated.

And organizers hope it will have another impact by ending the trend of top prospects opting out of some or all drills in Indy in favor of working with college teammates in the familiar surroundings of their own schools.

“That’s our hope,“ Foster said. “We think the workouts at night create a better experience for the players and one they’re more familiar with because it’s more like a typical game day. If you have a 4 o’clock workout, that’s kind of like a 4 o’clock kickoff. We think the combination will increase participation.”