NFL Combine Winners and Losers

Notes on a trip to the NFL Scouting Combine.

The 2008 NFL Scouting Combine is three days old, and although there are many 40s yet to be run and many Wonderlics yet to be taken, we've seen enough for an early look at the winners and losers:

Winner: Rashard Mendenhall. The Illinois running back considers himself the best back in the draft, and there are definitely NFL coaches who agree with that assessment.

Loser: Darren McFadden. After he weighed in at 211 pounds, a whole lot of people in Indianapolis were saying McFadden, the Arkansas running back, just doesn't have enough lower-body muscle to fight for tough yards in the NFL.

Winner: Jake Long. The Michigan offensive tackle managed 37 reps on the 225-pound bench press, the most of any offensive lineman in Indianapolis. There are some questions about where Long will play at the next level; most people think he's a left tackle but I heard from two league observers who watched a lot of Michigan tape and think Long will make a better right tackle. But there is little doubt that Long will be a Top 5 pick.

Loser: Colt Brennan. The Hawaii quarterback weighed in at 207 pounds, 22 heavier than he was at the Senior Bowl, but NFL teams aren't impressed with his added bulk. As his stock continues to drop, Brennan is looking like a guy who would be lucky to go in the sixth round.

Winner: The New York Jets. Talk is already heating up that a few teams are interested in trading to get the sixth overall pick, which is owned by the Jets. Although it's unlikely that any trade would happen any time soon, there's a perception in league circles that moving ahead of the Patriots, who pick seventh, is a good place to be in this year's first round. That means the Jets should field some offers.

Loser: The New England Patriots. Not only because everyone wants to move ahead of them in the draft, but also because everyone is talking about them – still – spying on opponents. Spygate was discussed at the Combine almost as much as the draft was.

Winners: DeAngelo Hall and Shaun Rogers. Hall, the Falcons cornerback, has been unhappy in Atlanta for some time, and now he's going to get his wish and get traded. Every league source I asked in Indianapolis agreed that Hall is on the way out of Atlanta; the only questions are which team will end up with him, how much that team will have to give the Falcons, and how much that team is willing to give Hall in a new contract.

Likewise, everyone agrees that the Detroit Lions will trade Rogers some time before the draft, and likely some time next week. That means Rogers, one of the league's most talented defensive linemen, might finally play for a winning team.

Losers: The Atlanta Falcons. Winning the coin toss that gives the Falcons the third pick in the draft doesn't guarantee Atlanta a better player than it would have acquired selecting third, but it does guarantee Atlanta that it will spend more money on that player. Until the NFL changes its salary structure to make the contracts of highly drafted rookies more sensible, "winning" a higher pick is actually a loss.

Winner: John Clayton. ESPN's information man was everywhere in Indianapolis. Clayton would race from one corner of the Indianapolis Convention Center, where he wrote his ESPN.com articles, to another corner, where he taped SportsCenter segments, all day long. He's the hardest working man in the NFL media business.

Losers: Sports writers covering the combine for newspapers. I heard several newspaper guys grousing about the fact that Combine information gets out so quickly that by the time the paper comes out, everyone who cares already knows. Journalists who post web updates throughout the day are providing a valuable service to their readers, but those whose readers are getting 12-hour-old news don't have much of a purpose at the Combine.

Bonus media loser: The "who's your agent guy". Yes, Hashmarks described him accurately. C'mon, man, come up with an original question, why don't you?

Winner: Dennis Dixon the wide receiver. Although Dixon, who played quarterback at Oregon, would like to get a shot at quarterback, he said he's willing to play wide receiver if that's what his NFL coach asks.

Loser: Dennis Dixon the quarterback. I've been told that most scouts believe Dixon, who's rehabbing from a torn ACL, just doesn't have the kind of pocket passing ability that NFL teams look for, and he shouldn't expect to play his preferred position at the professional level.

Winner: Brian Brohm. The Louisville quarterback decided to do everything (unlike John Germaine) at the combine and as a result has earned a measure of respect fro NFL coaches and scouts. Right now Brohm is behind Boston College's Matt Ryan on most draft boards, but by working out at the combine, Brohm is giving himself a chance to move up.

Loser: The combine itself, if the hype overtakes the substance. A lot of people don't realize this, but the NFL actually doesn't run the combine. An organization called National Football Scouting does. And because the Combine has gotten bigger and become more of a media circus, there was talk this week that the NFL needs to take more control of the logistics of it. When National Football Scouting first brought the Combine to Indianapolis in 1987, it was a small event that barely registered on the sports media radar. That's not the case anymore, and the league needs to make sure it moves away from the trivial things like Owen Schmitt's mohawk, and stays focused on important things like Maurice Jones-Drew's butt.