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Going to the NFL Combine was like seeing behind the proverbial curtain at Oz. There are 500 or so media members clamoring around a series of players brought out for interviews.
The same questions get asked over and over again of the players: What was your official height and weight, how was playing at (insert college here), which NFL teams have you talked to so far, what are you expecting to run the 40 in, tell me about (insert player more famous than you that was either on your team or in the same conference), and, strangely, who's your agent?
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| Athletes at the NFL Combine field 'interesting' questions. (AP) |
The players stand on an upraised podium with an NFL shield and a backdrop that's just wide enough for the camera lens. They're introduced by short publicity men with turtlenecks and gelled hair who work for the NFL and then old, fat white men with goatees lob questions at the players and people jostle one another to "get a scoop."
But the dirty little secret of the NFL Combine is that the NFL Network does such a tremendous job covering the event that every single fan sitting at home has more of an idea what's taking place at the combine than the actual media do.
Yep, thanks to restricted access the reporters who are there to cover the combine can't even see the drills. That's because the combine drills are taking place in the RCA Dome. Which, though it's only about 500 yards from the media room in the Indianapolis Convention Center, might as well be 2,000 miles away.
So if you actually care what happens in these drills, which I do, you're relegated to watching one of four 20-inch televisions that are spaced around a large conference room. There's no sound and the television screens are so small it's almost impossible to actually see the players' numbers. Basically, going to the combine is the rough equivalent of traveling to the Super Bowl and then watching the game from a television screen behind the deli counter in a bad neighborhood. Only worse because you're in Indianapolis, Ind.
Nevertheless, here are my notes from the combine. DDT style:
1. First of all, Indianapolis is a horrible city. I'm sure several of you live there and you'll write me a ton of e-mails telling me how wrong I am. But you'll be wrong. At least when it's winter. When I arrive (after having spent the previous day caught in an ice storm and being forced to spend the night in Louisville), it's sleeting and miserable. I want to leave already.
2. I'm staying at the Courtyard by Marriot downtown. Easy enough, right? It would be if there weren't two of them within a mile of each other. Of course I go to the wrong one. The guy at the front desk reacts like I've just shown up in Berlin when I meant to go to Kabul. This is our conversation. "Oh, you're at the wrong hotel. How in the world did you manage that?"
"They have the same name and they're both downtown."
Contemptible shake of the head. "What you need to do is drive out until Maryland and New York intersect and then take two rights. Do you know where Maryland and New York intersect?"
"The state of Pennsylvania."
