The most boring thing EVER

I guess if you’re going to call yourself the NFL Network, then you’re going to cover all things NFL related. That includes sending Rich Eisen and the crew to Indianapolis to provide extensive coverage of the NFL Scouting Combine.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the Combine, it’s where prospective draft picks go to get poked and prodded (mentally as well as physically) by NFL teams. After having their measurements taken the players are sent onto Lucas Oil Field to jump, run and lift a bunch of stuff.

Of course, the faster a guy runs and the more he lifts will translate into a higher draft position, which in turn translates into more money. With that in mind it’s not overstating it to say that for the players participating it could very well be the most important day of their professional lives.

So I get it, it’s a big deal. However, I gotta say that any football fan who actually devotes time to watching the Combine is a giant douchebag, a loser of the highest order and a person who really needs to reconsider his or her station in life.

I tuned in for 15 minutes today, a day in which the combine happened to be concentrating on offensive linemen. It was literally big guys dressed in form fitting shorts and tank tops who were running the 40-yard dash and doing the vertical jump. That’s it. Seriously, it’s like watching really big dudes take the Presidential Physical Fitness Test.

For the scouting department of an NFL team, the Combine is like the Super Bowl. For the viewing public, the Combine is like the Arena Bowl.

Why would any fan care about this? To see how fast your favorite college team’s soon to be graduated left tackle can run the 40? Because from the perspective of an NFL fan, it’s an exercise in futility, the actual draft is still over a month away.

If you’re a Bears fan and you fall in love with Bruce Campbell’s vertical jump (pictured below), you still have no guarantee that they’ll have the opportunity to pick him. So why bother?

Don’t get me wrong, the information coming out of the Combine is still very interesting because it helps shape how the Draft will actually come together. But some things in life are better reported on in the newspaper and not broadcast with a jabbering Jamie Dukes droning on and on and on….