Dawgs By Nature
The top two, Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders, might be Cleveland’s answer
The NFL does a really good job of keeping fans interested in their game all year long including those of the Cleveland Browns.
The Conference Championships are followed by the Reese’s Senior Bowl and the Pro Bowl in the two-week lull before the Super Bowl. Then right after the big game, the Combine followed by the beginning of free agency, and then the NFL draft, minicamp, a month of vacation, and then into training camp.
RELATED: UPDATE ON SHEDEUR SANDERS PLANS AT THE NFL COMBINE
The Combine begins February 27 through March 2 in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts. It is an occurrence that is invitation only with 329 prospects invited to participate. Invitations go out in waves as 250 are mailed first to players whose season is already completed.1 Then the other invites go out after the bowl games and to see which underclassmen declare for the draft.
A committee of about 10 people votes on which players will receive an invitation. Each player must receive at least seven votes to get invited. Lobbying does happen by the player’s college or his agent.
The event is attended by every NFL head and assistant coach, scout, player personnel director, GM, and sometimes an owner or two, along with hundreds of media members. Just like the Senior Bowl, it is an NFL convention.
It is also a time for GMs to get together and make deals and trade offers, or at least get the process started. When the Browns traded for Odell Beckham, Jr., that deal was made at the Combine.
Its official name is the “NFL Scouting Combine” but most folks just refer to it as “the Combine.”
In the 1960s, Dallas Cowboys GM Tex Schramm had started using computers to keep info on college athletes and was the first club to do so. There were very few scouts employed by NFL teams and a lot of coaches and GMs used the Street & Smith guide to college football to gather info about players.
Before the draft, into the 1980s a lot of players began to have showcase days which were informal workouts in front of NFL coaches and scouts. More and more of the elite college football athletes began hosting these workouts. The issue became that NFL teams had to fly their people across the country to see these players work out, get valuable medical information, and get to know them.
The New York Jets began bringing in players on their own, but this came at a pretty penny. Then three different camps operated as a method to look at draft prospects.
Schramm suggested to the league 2 to hold a workout for NFL draft prospects in one location, saving time and money. In 1982, the first event took place in Tampa, Florida with 163 players. Because there were few indoor stadiums at the time, just like...
