The fact is that the NFL draft is a crap shoot at best. You can take a guy that is a "can't miss" only to watch him fail miserably. The guy in this picture can attest to that.
You can take a chance on a guy in the sixth or seventh round and find a diamond. Tom Brady,Terrell Davis, and Deacon Jones proved that.
Knowing this, what should scouts be looking for when evaluating a player in Indianapolis this week? Should they look for the guy that runs a sub 4.30 second 40 yard dash?
Well, that worked pretty well in the cases of Deion Sanders, Rod Woodson, and most recently Chris Johnson. Although, there were plenty of other reasons why these men were good picks.
However, this method has proven to fail just as often as it succeeds, if not more.
Fabian Washington hasn't been nearly as good as his measurables would indicate, Renaldo Nehemiah was barely average and the book is not written on Darius Heyward-Bey, but it's not off to a great start.
James Jett and Raghib Ismail ran sub 4.4s in the 40, but never had any meaningful impact. Jerry Rice and Chris Carter ran in the high 4.5s, low 4.6s and turned out to be two of the best receivers in the annals of the game.
There are other drills that are highly touted as well, like the bench press. Is the strongest guy at a given position of need the best way to ensure success?
Tony Mandrich benched the standard 225 pounds more than 30 times and never made a major difference for any team.
He had poor footwork and poor work ethic.
He actually proved to be serviceable after a two year hiatus, but not for the team that drafted him and no where near the hype he generated.
On the flip side of that, LaRoi Glover and Jamal Williams put up more than thirty reps on t...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Oakland Raiders
