With the NFL combine and draft coming up, I will dive into the problems with the combine and the proper use of testing especially for player selection. At the end, I will connect this to coaches in other sports and other levels.
For American football fans, the NFL Combine has become an EVENT that is (in non-COVID years) televised and followed closely. The idea for the combine goes back decades when film of players and other information was not as readily available, and maybe not so reliable; many of the best players are invited to one place where all the teams could gather and measure them for height and weight and meet the players. Assessments thought to be predictive of future performance were included. Think of it as a massive job fair for very athletic people.
For those lucky enough not to be exposed to the “underwear Olympics”, as it is sometimes called, the activities include the 40-yard (just shy of 40 meters) dash and the 225-pound bench press (a little over 100 kilograms). These are two activities that have bothered me for a while. As someone trained in the sports sciences, I look at these and question the validity of the assessments. For instance, football players rarely run 40 continuous yards in a straight line from a crouched start. While receivers and running backs may often do this, quarterbacks rarely do and linemen even more rarely. So why measure something so few do? To the credit of the evaluators, they now collect the splits for the 40 so that they have the first 10 yards, a measure that seems much more applicable to what football players do in their job.
The bench press is another assessment that is problematic. The challenge here is to do as many repetitions as possible with 225 pounds on the bar. First, why 225? Second, what is being measured here? It is muscular endurance, not strength or power (the ability to exert force quickly). A play in football lasts a few seconds from snap of the ball to the whistle so endurance per se is not a key attribute you want in your football players. The bench press is also done in a position that no football player wants to find himself in—flat on his back. Lastly, the bench press favors players with shorter arms (less distance to move the bar) and yet it is preferable for a football player to be “long” that is have a large wingspan.
