Combine winners

The combine has finished after a very long and busy weekend and it has sent us all to YouTube or contacting anyone who has some game film to watch on certain players. My opinion on the combine is no one is a loser. Even if a player did not measure up or test as predicted it means scouts will go and watch more game film on that player to check if they have missed anything. Ultimately the player has achieved what they wanted, potential employers watching them play football.

I do believe though certain people come away from the combine as big winners and these are generally easy to spot because the incredible amount of buzz surrounding a player. I'm going to discuss my winners this evening.

1. Manti Te'o. The most watched aspect of the combine was his press conference following of the drama that was created from the cat fish scandal. I personally believe he handled it very well, he discussed the issue when reporters asked him about it but at the same time moved the topic of conversation on to focus on football. He appeared as if he had finally put the issue to bed and could focus on his football. He handled the situation well and teams wanted to talk about him as a footballer not a young person who made a silly mistake.

2. Tavon Austin. The wide receiver blow the forty up by nearly breaking Chris Johnson time and setting a sub 4.35 time. This is the event that gets most media attention and so if you want scouts to look at you this is the event to dominate. As the NFL gets quicker and faster teams look for explosive players and they will build plays around them. In less than four and a half seconds Austin increased his draft stock and earned himself a lot of money.

3. Dee Milliner. One of the question marks Milliner had against him entering the draft is his straight line speed. The best way to answer that is to set a fast forty time and he did this. His time of 4.37 now answers all scouts problems with his speed, I fully expect him to not run a forty at his pro day and to be really happy with this time. I still have other questions on Milliner such as is he a product of a brilliant system and is inexperience with his back pedal. However there is no doubt with this forty time Milliner is a winner from the combine.