A Scout’s Take on the History of the Annual NFL Scouting Combine

Greg Gabriel shares some thoughts about the early years of the NFL Combine.

When the annual Combine began in January 1985, it was held outdoors at Arizona State. Why Arizona State University? The people who ran the NFL Combine at that time — it was run by the head of National Scouting Harry Buffington — studied weather records over the previous ten years, and the weather was supposed to be in the low 70s with a minimal chance of rain. While the temperature was correct, we had rain for two of the four days workouts took place. With all the events being held on grass, the times weren’t nearly as fast as they are now.

The people attending the Combine were mostly the scouting and medical staffs, along with a few coaches. There was only a handful of media there, and very few, if any, of the results were made known to the public. In fact, if any numbers got out, it was usually a few weeks after the Combine, and they were leaked by team sources.

Because there was rain in the 1985 event, the following year the Combine was held in New Orleans the week after Super Bowl XX. Again, it wasn’t close to being as organized as it is today, and the number of people attending was relatively small. The only difference from the year before was that a few more coaches attended. While we see coaches and scouts now watching the events from the stands or suites in the stadium, back then, all were standing on the floor of the Super Dome watching. If a person was in the stands trying to watch, he didn’t see much as the floor of the Dome was packed with scouts and coaches.

In 1987, the Combine was moved to Indianapolis, where it still is today, and like the first two Combines, the number of people attending was small. The main difference is because the workouts were held in the RCA Dome, which was connected to the Indianapolis Convention Center, there was much more room to get more done. It was then that some clubs started doing psychological testing and other test. With the players being housed at the Crown Plaza Hotel across the street from the Dome and all the hotels being within walking distance from the Dome, teams started doing more with the players.

At night, which was basically our downtime, some teams began to interview players. There was no set time for such interviews, and it was up to each team’s scouts to find the players and bring them to the team room for an interview. With no rules in place, teams had some players for up to an hour, and scouts began fighting with each other over who had the “right’ to interview a certain player. When I say “fight’ I literally mean fight, and there were more than a few shoving matches and punches thrown arguing about securing players for an interview.

This period of a Wild West atmosphere went on for a few more years until the people at National Scouting who run the event began to assign interviews for each player to certain clubs. At that time, clubs could interview up to 40 players, and interviews would last from about 6:30 PM until 10:00 PM. Assigning interviews turned out to be a great idea as the chaos of the previous few years instantly went away. Now, the number of interviews allowed by each club is much higher.

The other big change that happened, and this was around 1990, was the national media began to attend. What was a fairly private workout and mass medical examination became a full-fledged NFL Convention. Since then, it has grown every year. During the first 10 or so years at Indy, there were no formal media interviews of Head Coaches and General Managers. That changed as more media began attending. In the beginning, clubs never sent PR people to the Combine, but it was too long before the entire PR Department was needed to help with media requests of club personnel.

There were always agents attending the Combine, but it was usually just the big-time agents who had several clients attending the Combine. Soon, every agent who had a license began attending, which brought the NFLPA into play, and they began holding meetings with the agents each year.

With the move to Indianapolis, more coaches began to attend, and while the coaches were there at first just to watch the workouts, they began getting involved in the interview process. When a club had a scheduled interview with a player, it was not unusual to see the Head Coach, position coach, Coordinator, and a handful of scouts at each interview.

In 1987, when we first held the Combine in Indianapolis, I would estimate that there were not more than 30 to 40 team personnel at the event. By 2005, that number grew to close to 100 team reps each year. Not only were the events of the Combine going on but there were various League Committee meetings being held.

The real explosion of the Combine becoming a must-attend event was when the NFL Network began televising the workouts in 2004. By the following year, every media outlet from every League City and all the National Media were there.

With the workouts being televised fan interest grew even more. Until 2004, when the NFL Network began television coverage, the results of the testing were hard to come by. Once the workouts were there to see. Getting the results was easy. This, of course, grew the Draft Analyst business into what it is today.

The League, seeing all the interest that the Combine generated, figured it was going to be a big source of income, and it wasn’t long after that fans were allowed in to watch. This is now the 40th year of the Combine, and I think that the only NFL events that are larger are the Super Bowl and the Draft. The Combine is no longer a small, private event but rather a full-fledged circus. As big as it is, it will continue to get bigger.