The 2010 NFL Scouting Combine starts today in Indianapolis, and there will be three Terps in attendance trying to improve their draft stock.
Terps have had a lot of success in the event, a trend I explored in today’s piece about longtime strength and conditioning coach Dwight Galt.
Left tackle Bruce Campbell, who is projected to go somewhere in the mid-first round according to most analysts, will be one of the most watched players in Indy. I touched on the subject of Campbell’s potential eye-opening performance in my story.
Campbell’s physical prowess has been well-known for a long time now. At 6-foot-7, 300+ pounds, Campbell has the agility and pure athleticism to “pull a Vernon Davis on the O-Line,” according to Galt.
Davis has been a popular comparison for Campbell of late. Both possess tremendous physical tools at positions that don’t traditionally turn heads in the speed or agility drills, the glamour events of the combine.
Here’s ESPN The Magazine’s Bruce Feldman:
It seems like every so often the Terps unveil another freak on the combine, and the 6-foot-7, 310-pound lineman sounds like the O-line version of Vernon Davis. Supposedly, Campbell — a guy who, despite those really long arms, is a 500-pound bencher — has run in the low 4.8s in terms of 40-yard dash time.
Here’s Galt on Campbell a week ago, who he brought up when we discussed how much value should be assigned to combine results:
“Look at Bruce Campbell, is a perfect example, who really has progressed a lot as a football player but that’s really not what he’s strong at right now. His strength is his tremendous physical ability. But let’s just see where he goes in April, you know, we both think it’s gonna be pretty darn good. He’s gonna make us proud. But he’s gonna absolutely dominate the combine. So that’s a great question but that’s the NFL’s biggest challenge as talent evaluators.”
Gil Brandt, NFL.com’s draft expert, was the man in charge of picking players for the Dallas Cowboys from 1960-1988.
Along with general manager Tex Schramm and coach Tom Landry, Brandt helped build the Cowboys into one of the league’s most successful franchises.
To Brandt, the combine serves an important purpose, but not neccessarily when it comes to much analyzed events like the 40-yard dash:
“If we got 300 guys at the combine, probably 275 have been in some type of special training program. They teach them how to run, they do everything. Long story short, by the time you clap your hands, that’s a million dollars. A guy could fall three or four sports or go up three or four spots.
“I myself, have never felt that was important. I thought, we at the Cowboys thought, some of the things that you got out of the combine were physical. You see if thery have any physical problems, have interviews, he tells you about his family. You don’t want to take away two or three years of information for an hour worth of work that’s done in shorts at the combine.”
It’s a constant debate for NFL scouts, and one they’ll likely have to weave through again after Campbell’s workout Saturday.
Aaron Kraut is The Diamondback’s sports editor. He can be reached at akrautdbk@gmail.com.