The NFL Combine is unlike anything else in professional sports. Every league has its own version of a combine ahead of the draft, but it’s football where draft stock can shift drastically over the course of a few days.
Everything kicks off in Indianapolis this week. The bulk of the first few days are team meetings with prospects, getting basic measurables, and medical testing — then we hit the pony show of the weekend with the timed drills that get all the attention on TV.
Any NFL scout worth their salt will tell you that the actual drills in Indy don’t really mean that much. It’s about having numbers to either confirm what you see on film to make a case to either have a prospect on the board, or not. That said, major surprises in the combine can have a serious impact on what happens in April.
These are the players with the most to gain or lose in Indianapolis this week.
Drake Maye
The slugfest at the top of the draft for QB1 between Caleb Williams and Drake Maye will continue all the way up to draft night. Recently it’s felt more and more like Williams is being penciled in as a presumptive No. 1, with Maye lagging a little. That could change in Indy.
Williams has decided to go into the combine without an agent and represent himself. It’s a very risky move when it comes to managing the information game in Indianapolis. On top of that, Williams has already confirmed that he doesn’t plan to throw at the combine — following a trend of other top quarterbacks in recent years.
Maye is throwing however, and he’s participating in every workout. This is big for two reasons:
- It gives him a chance to throw off his athleticism
- It will allow Maybe to assuage fears about his footwork
North Carolina did not have a good offensive line this year. Maye was too often pressured on basic two-man rushes, and had little time in the pocket. He still thrived despite this, but it meant we don’t have a lot of great film of Maye’s mechanics. Throwing in Indy will allow him to show this element of his game off, and give a sense of whether he can do all the little things he needs to mechanically.
There’s also an opportunity here to show off his quickness in drills like the 40 and cone. Maye is a very underrated athlete who absolutely has the wheels to escape pressure. There’s a big chance to surprise with this element of his game, and good throwing paired with better-than-expects measurables could push Maybe into the QB1 spot while Williams largely spins his tires.
Marvin Harrison Jr.
Marvin Harrison Jr. is a phenom. The man is incredible. It’s very rare we see a wide receiver prospect who is this complete, this functionally perfect. We’re talking about a player at this point in the process who is so far beyond what we expect from a WR that he’s honestly ahead of where legends like Larry Fitzgerald and Calvin Johnson were at this point in their pre-draft process.
Now there’s a wrinkle.
This isn’t something that should hurt MH Jr, but old-school front office folks will probably balk at him not participating in the process. The lack of a 40 or three-cone isn’t nearly as potentially concerning as not being in town to meet teams or work out at all.
It’s a measured risk. There is no planet where Marvin Harrison Jr. isn’t the first receiver off the board, but it will be interesting to see if this pushes him down. Does a team in the top-five get concerned over this enough not to take him as early as we thought?
It’s definitely possible, and that could hurt his stock a lot.
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Photo by CFP/Getty Images
J.J. McCarthy
Nobody is flying up boards like Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy. This is a guy who was seen as a day two player as recently as a month ago, then started popping up in the 20s, then the teens — now there’s serious belief he could go as high as top-three in the draft.
There’s some phenomenal work being done by McCarthy’s agent and team to build hype around him, and he’s fully participating in Indy. The upside here is extremely clear: Teams want to see him thow the entire route tree, and overall get a better sense of who he is as a player, considering a pretty limited passing resume at Michigan given the team was built around defense and the run.
If McCarthy can show that he has the ability to make every throw asked of him, and you pair that with the known quantities about him when it comes to leadership and decision making — man, he really could be one of the first players off the board in April.
Rome Odunze
The presumptive No. 2 wide receiver in the 2024 class, there’s nothing Odunze could do to pass Marvin Harrison Jr. unless a team absolutely flubs the process. That doesn’t mean Odunze doesn’t have the potential to be an incredible NFL receiver.
You can’t teach size, and at 6’3, 213 pounds he’s a rare combination of speed and power that will be intriguing for teams. The only concern is whether he has the first step needed to shake defensive backs at the snap — which is something he didn’t always show at Washington.
Odunze is a first round lock. It’s only a question of how high he could go. If he’s able to show in agility drills that he has the footwork and sudden acceleration that teams crave then he could easily catapult himself into the top-10. A bad week could see him fall to the late teens or early 20s.
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Photo by Michael Miller/ISI Photos/Getty Images
Joe Alt
Offensive linemen can’t really do a lot in Indy. It’s just the nature of the beast. There’s no doubt that Alt will thrive in a gym environment, because he’s a long-armed, athletic tackle who should really thrive at drills that don’t have a lot of bearing on offensive tackles.
This is about the interview portion and the position drills for Alt. There are some very fair concerns that he’s more of a finesse tackle who could deal with speed rushers in the NFL, but struggle against power.
Now, there’s no perfect drill to gather information about strength — but if he can show technique and pop on the bags that indicates that he could handle all types of pass rushers at the next level, then Alt will cement himself as the No. 1 offensive lineman off the boards.
If that doesn’t happen? Then it gets more tricky. Olumuyiwa Fashanu from Penn State could leap up and pass him. Fashanu is technique-light, but his raw tools will absolutely be coveted. Also, if you’re a team looking at him then you might like that he doesn’t need to un-learn any bad habits, so you can coach him up.
Bo Nix
The quarterbacks of this year’s draft fall into a few tiers before we get to Indianapolis.
Tier 1: Caleb Williams and Drake Maye
Tier 2: Jayden Daniels and J.J. McCarthy
Tier 3: Bo Nix and Michael Penix
Williams and Maye will go in the top-five. Daniels and McCarthy should go in the top-15. From there it gets murky. Both Nix and Penix should be 2nd round picks, but a lot of weird stuff can change in Indy.
Penix’s injury history will spook teams. I don’t think he’ll have a lot of upward movement. Nix on the other hand, could really do something. Someone is going to want to talk themselves into Nix, and draw labored comparisons to Justin Herbert (they’re really not the same player), but confirmation bias can have a weird effect if the workout is good.
If Nix shows out in Indy then we really could see talk about him moving into the first round, perhaps even the teens to a QB-needy team like Seattle or someone like Pittsburgh at 20.
