The NFL Scouting Combine.  How can you not love it?  For six days each year, a bunch of marginally-intelligent fat guys with stopwatches show up at an NFL stadium and watch college football players from across the country run, jump and lift weights.  Here's a snapshot of the afore-mentioned geniuses, stopwatches in hand:

This year, they are sitting in the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana, all huddled together, in an attempt to determine which young men are worthy of selection by their team in the crapshoot that is the NFL draft.  Once a player is deemed worthy, there are a host of additional questions.  When should we take him?  Is he a first rounder?  A second rounder?  Is he a 'Day One'r' or a 'Day Two'r"?  Could he be …… an 'impact' player? 

Armed with their stopwatches, clip boards and fun size Doritos, they sit around for SIX days observing the nation's best college football prospects in hopes that they will be able to figure out who will succeed at the next level.  Sure, they've got countless hours of video tape on every one of these guys actually playing football against real opponents over the course of three of four years in college, but why would you rely on in-game performance when you can instead rely on the kind of tried and true metrics you get from the NFL Scouting Combine?  How could this battery of tests NOT predict success in the NFL?  Let's take a closer look at a few of them, shall we?

1.  The 40-yard Dash - No need to waste a lot of time on this one.  I think we all know that the forty has been proven as the benchmark for determining NFL success.  It's pretty obvious that there is a direct correlation between how fast a guy runs in a straight line for forty yards with no pads on and his chances for success in the NFL.  In fact, it's a very simple process.  If you are considering two players at the same position, you take the faster one first.  It's guaranteed.  The N.Y. Jets know what I'm talking about.  In 1990, they took Blair Thomas with the second pick in the draft.  Blair ran the forty in a very impressive 4.4 seconds.  That's fast.  Really fast for a running back.  A couple of coaches passed out after looking at their stopwatches.  Blair's time was much faster than Emmitt Smith's, who couldn't even get out of his own way at the combine, running a 4.71.  What a toad.  They almost asked him to leave, but he was allowed to continue, seeing as how he had just finished running wild through SEC defenses, scoring 37 touchdowns and rushing for 127 yards per game during his career.  But the secret was out.  The NFL combine had successfully exposed Emmitt as SLOW.  Thank God the Jets were there to see it.  If they hadn't known how slow Emmitt was, they might have passed on Blair Thomas and taken Emmitt instead.  Emmitt slipped to the 17th pick in the first round, and some idiot in Dallas, obviously not understanding Emmitt's limitations with regard to speed, decided to roll the dice on him.  Somehow, Emmitt defied the odds and his slowness, winning four NFL rushing titles, rushing for over 1,000 yards in eleven consecutive seasons and becoming the all-time NFL rushing leader with 18,355 yards.  Blair, on the other hand, ran into some bad luck.  He suffered some nagging injuries.  They apparently caused him to drop the ball a lot.  He played for six seasons, amassed about 2,200 yards, seven touchdowns, and five fumbles.  The Jets are probably still kicking themselves over their bad luck.  Imagine how much more successful Blair would have been than Emmitt if he had been able to stay healthy.  Especially when you consider how much faster he was.

Jerry Rice is another prime example of the importance of the 40-yard dash in predicting NFL success.  While other receivers were wowing the fat guys by running 4.3 second forties prior to the 1985 draft, Jerry was throwing up a tortoise-like 4.7 forty.  Jerry, like Emmitt, had broken numerous records in college, so they let him hang around, but a lot of teams were smart enough to realize what was important - when running in a straight line with no pads on for forty yards, Jerry Rice was slow.  The 49ers ignored all the signs and actually traded up in the first round to get Jerry with the 16th selection.  Apparently they didn't understand that receivers are supposed to be fast, and the combine had provided definitive evidence that Jerry was not.  Jerry's another example of a guy who beat all the odds.  In spite of his painfully slow forty time, he was able to use his God-given athletic ability, intelligence and work ethic and parlay them into thirteen Pro-Bowls in his twenty year NFL career, establishing himself as one of the best to ever play the game. 

So, as you can see, if you want a team full of really fast guys, 40-yard dash times are very important.  Maybe not so important if you want to win Super Bowls, but who cares about Super Bowls when you've got a team full of really fast guys?  Also, great 40-yard dash times do not appear to be a determinant of success on ABC's Dancing With The Stars. 

2.  The Vertical Leap - Here's a guy doing the vertical leap:

I'm a big fan of this one because I like the colorful gadget that they use.  Every time I see a picture of someone knocking those flag things to the side, I want to run out, buy one, and set it up in my living room.  I know - I'd need a short one so I could reach the flags.   I guarantee you this much - on the right day, given the right circumstances, you could slide a Sunday paper under my feet when I went up for those flags.  You might have to take out all the ads, but you could get it in there.  I know it.  I'm gonna start practicing when I finish this entry.  Here's a link to a website I found that sells the gadgets.  Don't tell Mrs. SportDork. 
http://www.jumpusa.com/vertec.htm

Having expressed my love for the gadget, I have to say that I'm not sure I get this drill.  If you can jump really high, go try out for the NBA.

3.  The Bench Press - Who wouldn't want to know how many times a guy can hoist 225 pounds in the air?  Apparently all these guys do:

Is it just me, or does it strike you as a little creepy to have all those guys sitting around watching one guy lift a barbell until exhaustion?  Seriously, take another look.  The last time I saw that many guys in one room focused that closely on the same thing I was at the Pink Pony in Atlanta. 
I find this picture disturbing.  I mean, why do they have to be there?  Are they inspecting his technique?  Are they all counting together?  Couldn't they just hang out in a Starbucks somewhere with a Double Latte and have the results e-mailed to them?  They all look way too focused. 

Here are a couple offensive linemen leaving after finishing their bench presses:

Baker:  How many reps did you do?
Crummey:  Thirty-Two.  How about you?
Baker:  Thirty-One. 
Crummey:  Cool.  (Long pause.)  Wasn't it a little weird having all those dudes staring at us?
Baker (after uncomfortable silence):  Yeah.  I think the guy from the Dolphins was looking at my junk.
Crummey:  You too?

4.  Broad Jump, Three-Cone Drill, 20-Yard Shuttle, 60-Yard Shuttle - More of the same.  You get the idea.  It's a bunch of guys doing things like this:

I'm having flashbacks to P.E. class.  Time to move on.

What's important here is that I have demonstrated the importance of these tests in determining a college football player's prospects in the NFL.  As an example, I present these two gentlemen from the combine:

If I'm an NFL personnel man, how am I supposed to know which of these guys has what it takes to make it in the NFL?  How do I know if either of them can play the game?  Who do I take first?  What?  What are you handing me?  Get that game footage out of my face!  I want to see their broad jump results! Now!

As demonstrated in an earlier picture, most of the coaches remain in a herd throughout the proceedings, which is why I found this one particularly interesting:

Herman Edwards, head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs.  Two interesting notes about this picture.  First, as you can see, Herman is sitting by himself.  No other coaches in sight.  And second, Herman appears to be taking a rather casual approach to the proceedings.  In fact, he looks like he might be looking over at all the other coaches with a look of confusion or disdain, doesn't he?  I wondered why Herman had strayed from the pack, where his stopwatch was, and why he might display such contempt toward his colleagues.  Then I remembered something.  Edwards, who played in the NFL for 10 years as a cornerback, wasn't drafted.  He signed with Philadelphia in 1977 as a rookie free-agent, and that was only after he pleaded to be given a try out with the team.  He went on to start 135 consecutive regular season games and made a franchise-record 38 interceptions in regular and post-season action.  Not bad for a guy who couldn't even get drafted.  I guess his Vert wasn't very good.

Somehow I get the impression that Herman doesn't put quite as much stock in the forty-yard dash as some of his colleagues.  He's probably keeping his distance from the other coaches for fear that he might grab one of them, rip off their stopwatch, and shove it down their throat.

Speaking of Herm's NFL colleagues, look who remembered his stopwatch!

Are you kidding me?  Tom Coughlin, coach of the Super Bowl Champion N.Y. Giants, is at the NFL Combine?  What's wrong with these guys?  Take a break, Tom.  After that Super Bowl win, you should be in Barbados right now, strolling along the beach, sipping a pina colada, wearing nothing but a banana hammock.  I know I'd be.  Maybe that's why I'm not an NFL coach.

There you have it.  The NFL Combine.  Three hundred college football players being evaluated by six hundred NFL personnel over six days.  Clearly the definitive measuring stick to determine NFL success.  Or maybe just an excuse for all these guys to get away from their wives and kids and drink beer for a week.  You decide.