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Old 08-08-2014, 07:49 AM   #446
DCEBB2001
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Re: Madden NFL 15 Connected Franchise Details, Trailer and Screenshots

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheba2011
So because you know a few scouts that means that no coach has ever used that term? I found a quote from Cleveland's new HC Mike Pettine on Fox Sports: "When it comes to the (NFL Scouting) Combine, there's a reason people call it The Underwear Olympics." Here's one from Chip Kelly: "The fact that people would watch the combine, there's times at the combine where I actually fall asleep," Kelly joked. Then there is the infamous image of Belichick actually falling asleep during the combine.

Here's what National Football Scouting Director Jeff Foster said about the combine: "The on-the-field stuff, which is the sexy component of the combine and what gets the interest for media and the broadcast, that's a very small part of the evaluation for the clubs," he said. "I would say 90 percent of the evaluation of a person as a football player is done before he arrives here."

6. I specifically said the Combine is useful for the interview process. The physicals, psychological tests etc. are all part of that process. The money paid to services like Blesto/National goes far beyond the combine. The combine is a very small part of the service they offer. They actually start scouting players as Juniors and spend the whole year scouting everything about them as explained here by the Panthers when they switched to BLESTO this year:

"Since the official declaration of the juniors eligible for the draft was January 18th, those guys (BLESTO) have been working on those juniors since the 18th hit," Whaley said, during an appearance Wednesday night on The John Murphy Show live at the Senior Bowl. "What they (BLESTO) do is give us a breakdown on what each of those juniors is about, and how they categorize those guys draft wise. And that will help us narrow our focus." "The BLESTO scouts will give us his information, here’s his lineage, here’s how he played , here’s what we thought about him when he played. Obviously, we had some scouts in on him, but we like to use that information resource as well, to get as much information on the players."

The combine is one tool for scouting but it is not the be all end all everyone makes it out to be. By the time the Combine is actually conducted NFL teams already have their big board set up and know which players they are targeting. Like I said the combine is useful because its the first chance teams have to see their entire big board in one place. As far as the game goes I would prefer actual scouting reports on players as opposed to seeing a 40 time or how many reps a guy did in a bench press. I would rather know if a WR has a tendency to run the wrong routes or if a QB has the arm strength of a 13 year old girl. That tell's me a lot more than knowing that my WR did 12 reps on the bench press.
What you say here is not incorrect. However, the combine tests are very useful for adding/verifying what you see on tape. Maybe a guy isn't as fast/agile/strong as he looks on tape. Maybe he is the opposite, and you have to go back to the tape to review. My point is that the term underwear olympics did not originate in scouting/coaching circles. And of course a guy like Belichick would fall asleep....he will get all of the data from BLESTO anyway a week after the combine concludes and his scouts will be doing their own work in the way that he wants. Most of the work was already done by the time the combine is run anyway - nothing new here.

The big thing to me is that if the numbers didn't matter, then why would teams pay $80k a pop to get them? You can use that data to measure the physical attributes of a player in a static environment, which many scouts do. They compare players and like to verify what they see on tape. So why can we not do this in Madden? Those numbers are set in stone. Why aren't Madden's? We should be able to do the same stuff in the game that the scouts do in real life - verify physical and technical skills. I can watch an OG pass-block all day, but that doesn't tell me how fast he is. Madden uses traits to measure players and speed (maximum velocity, rather) is one of them. Scouts do the same thing. They try to evaluate and measure what they can. Why else would they turn technical skills grades into numeric ratings?
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