Combine Hypocrisy

I'm sure anyone reading this has heard that this year's NFL Scouting Combine has been cancelled. The NFL has deemed it unsafe due to Covid concerns. This is the same NFL that has plowed ahead with a game when a team didn't even have a QB. The same league that let's 20,000+ people into a stadium for a playoff game. Why exactly can't we hold the NFL Combine?

Each year around 335 players get invited to the Combine, those players workout over the course of four to six days. If you include the coaches running the drills on the field, the media covering the event (which could be scaled back) and the coaches, GM's and scouts in attendance what are we looking at, 250 people in the building each day?

There's nothing else going on at the end of February, you could bring every person attending to Indianapolis a week prior, get everyone tested and implement all the same safety protocols the NFL uses for games. If you don't want to hold the event indoors, move it down to Florida and hold it in an outdoor stadium. There is no good reason why we can't have this event.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a huge NFL Draft guy. I live for the Combine each year and for some reason the NFL has decided against what I would call one of the easier events to pull off during a pandemic. They'll pile in around 25,000 people into Raymond James Stadium next Sunday for Super Bowl LV but god forbid 200 people enter Lucas Oil Stadium together at the end of the month. I get it, the Super Bowl brings in money, the Combine not so much. But I'm not asking you to cancel the Super Bowl, I'm just asking to hold the Combine as well.

Canceling this event really puts a damper on the entire NFL Draft process. It hurts the players, it hurts the coaches and GM's, it hurts the media, it hurts the fans. Now instead of being able to watch the Combine this year, I'm sitting here today watching the Senior Bowl practice, just so I can get a closer look at these players. In a world were more and more things are starting to get reopened and we are starting to get back to normal, the NFL doesn't feel like it's safe to hold an event with a couple hundred people in a huge stadium. I just think it was a bullshit decision and once again the NFL looks foolish under the leadership of Roger Goodell.