NFL wants to bring ‘dignity and respect’ back to the Combine
NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent said Wednesday that the league wants to bring changes to the NFL Combine this offseason. But the changes will have nothing to do with the 40-yard dash or bench press.
“The Combine is the players’ first experience with the National Football League,” Vincent said at the owners’ quarterly meeting. “There has to be a level of dignity and respect as they go through the process.”
It was an interesting comment, because it acknowledges that the NFL has not shown “dignity and respect” to the 330 or so players who participate each year.
The Combine is a necessary part of the NFL Draft process, but it also can be dehumanizing. Players give dozens of interviews to NFL personnel of all levels, and sometimes the questions get out of line, “questions that are not even legal,” Vincent said.
Players wait for hours for MRIs and other medical tests, and have to do it over and over for the different teams. Players have long days and are often up until 1 a.m., and are expected to be at their best when performing drills on latenight national TV.
“The biggest thing that the players have raised over the time period is, ‘I come in, I’m fired up for this, and I have to go get additional medical tests, and I’m sitting in a hospital waiting for four or five hours for an MRI machine,’ “commissioner Roger Goodell said.
Vincent said this past week that the NFL will alter the schedule to make it better for prospects at next year’s Combine, held February and March in Indianapolis. The bench press and on-field workouts were moved to separate days. And instead of holding all of the drills on prime-time TV, the NFL agreed to move up the start time to late afternoon.
“Now it will end earlier but still go into prime time, which I think is a win for the prospect experience and hopefully maximize the reach in viewership,” said Peter O’Reilly, NFL executive vice president for events.
And the NFL will encourage more sharing of medical exams and files to prevent players from having to take six MRIs while in Indianapolis.
“There’s a better way of getting the information with dignity and respect,” Vincent reiterated.
The NFL also announced that Boston-based apparel company NoBull will be the Combine’s presenting sponsor for the next five years.
A look at some of the other updates at a surprisingly busy meeting at the
Four Seasons Dallas, which featured owners, general managers, and salary-cap managers:
The NFL won’t change any rules during the season, but the owners likely will vote at the next meeting in March on using instant replay to review late hits and roughing the passer. Vincent said this was a priority of certain owners who want to see more protections for players in general, but particularly for quarterbacks.
Vincent said that roughing the passer penalties are actually down nearly 62 percent from this time last year (76 calls this year compared with 116). But there have been a few egregiously bad calls this year, mostly related to the officials determining that a player used his “full body weight” to land on a quarterback. Vincent said the NFL disagreed with the controversial penalty levied on Dolphins pass rusher Jaelan Phillips last Sunday night, and there was another controversial one Thursday night on 49ers rusher Nick Bosa that negated a defensive touchdown.
At the March meeting, there will be discussion about whether replay should be used at all for roughing the passer or personal foul penalties; whether it should be automatically reviewed, or if coaches will have to use a challenge flag; and whether replay can be used on a play where the runner appears to give himself up. The NFL will consider automatic ejections when a player (mostly quarterbacks) is hit after he slides.
The topic of artificial turf vs. natural grass continues to be hotly debated, with the Players Association saying that all 30 stadiums should have natural grass (currently 15 do). NFL executive vice president of communications Jeff Miller said that league data, compiled by both the NFL and NFLPA, showed a negligible difference in 2021 of injury rates on natural grass vs. artificial turf.
NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills said that some teams and players have said they don’t like certain natural grass surfaces because the
surface is slick and worn down in the middle of the field, and the grass doesn’t grow the same in December as it does in August.
The NFL made clear that the Colts will have to go through the Rooney Rule process this offseason when looking for a head coach, even if owner Jim Irsay wants to hire Jeff Saturday on a fulltime basis. That means interviewing at least two minority candidates from outside the organization.
Irsay made a mockery of the Rooney Rule by hiring Saturday, who had no previous coaching experience above high school, and giving him the inside track for the job, saying at the time of the hire it was for “eight games, and hopefully more.” Steelers owner Art Rooney II, whose father, Dan, helped create the Rooney Rule 20 years ago, all but acknowledged there is nothing the NFL can do to stop Irsay from hiring Saturday, even if it reeks of favoritism.
Commanders owner Daniel Snyder was not present at the meeting, and Goodell said there is no timeline for the completion of Mary Jo White’s investigation into allegations of sexual assault and financial impropriety. The investigation, a follow-up to the original investigation by Beth Wilkinson, has been going on 10 months, and White has still not interviewed Snyder.
Snyder announced last month that he is exploring a sale, but it is unclear if he intends to sell the entire team, part of it, or none. It’s possible that the NFL ultimately doesn’t produce a report from White because Snyder sells the team.
The NFL uses the December meeting to prep GMs and salary-cap managers for the upcoming free agency period. But the NFL wasn’t able to give teams a ballpark figure for next year’s salary cap because the new Sunday Ticket package, which could add billions of dollars to the NFL’s bottom line, hasn’t been negotiated yet. Sunday Ticket is leaving DirecTV after this season, and the NFL is trying to sell it to a streaming service, but the negotiations are dragging.