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.
Origins of 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.
Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
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 warm weather cities that hosted Super Bowls, the same occurred with the initial combine. An outdoor venue in a sunny climate was needed at the end of February when a lot of NFL cities were still experiencing brutal weather.
Subsequent combines were then held in New Orleans and Phoenix. In 1987 it was moved again, but this time to the RCA Dome in Indianapolis which was deemed a more neutral location for all NFL clubs. What also occurred was that every NFL team could now share the costs for the medical examinations of draft-eligible players 3 instead of paying for this information on their own. Obviously, it would be less costly to have all athletes being seen by doctors and getting medicals done in one location and under strict parameters.
In addition to the stadium, there are two state-of-the-art training facilities nearby. In nearby Westfield, Indiana, a suburb of Indy, the Colts’ training camp is at Grand Park Sports Campus, a 400+ acre sports campus that has over 2.5 million visitors a year and attracts over $1.5 billion in economic development.
Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center is another state-of-the-art training facility located on the northwest side of Indianapolis.
In recent years, there has been a suggestion for the league to make the Combine a traveling show just like the NFL draft, and allow different NFL cities to experience the process. However, the NFL is fine with the current format and is not interested in this one event to become a spectator-friendly event.
This is business and serious stuff. The last thing the NFL wants is a bunch of autograph seekers yelling at players while they are trying to focus on their next event. The league announced in January 2024 that the event would remain in Indy through at least 2025.4
How to watch
NFL Network is available through the NFL app, your cable provider, or NFL.com/watch for subscribers. They will broadcast live coverage beginning February 27. Live streaming is also available across devices on NFL+.
Schedule:
Thursday, Feb. 27
3 p.m. (Eastern) – defensive linemen and linebackers
Friday, Feb. 28
3 p.m. (Eastern) – defensive backs and tight ends
Saturday, March 1
1 p.m. (Eastern) – quarterbacks, wide receivers and running backs
Sunday, March 2
1 p.m. (Eastern) – offensive linemen
Cleveland and the Combine
Dawgs By Nature’s Jared Mueller and Damon Wolf will attend this year’s Combine and give reports.
This year’s Combine is particularly important to the franchise because not only does the team not have a starting quarterback, but it is also devoid of a backup-caliber signal caller as well.
RELATED: WHEN BROWNS HC, GM SPEAK AND OTHER IMPORTANT DETAILS
With the Browns sitting at the Number 2 slot in the first round, either Miami’s Cam Ward or Shedeur Sanders of Colorado will be there. The issue is, does Cleveland want either one of them? Or perhaps just Ward?
The consensus is that the Tennessee Titans want Ward and will draft him first overall.
Photo by CFP/Getty Images
If the Browns are dead set on getting the best QB available, then they may select Sanders second overall. However, if GM Andrew Berry would rather draft the best player available, that should come down to two players: DE Abdul Carter of Penn State, or CB/WR Travis Hunter. Either player would provide the Browns with tremendous talent and solve some huge holes right away.
Carter is a problem for any offense on every play, and Hunter would give the Browns a WR2 plus a stud in the defensive backfield which is sorely needed.
Either of these players will be almost impossible to pass up. The only other option would be to trade down, gather more draft picks, and focus on one of the two elite offensive tackles: Will Campbell (6’-6”, 323 pounds) out of LSU or Texas bulldozer Kelvin Banks, Jr. (6’-4”, 320 pounds). Or maybe grab pass-rushing DE Shemar Stewart of Texas A&M (6’-6”, 290 pounds) who lit up the Senior Bowl this year.
The big question that remains is how many quarterbacks will actually throw. Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, and Drake Maye were the top three quarterbacks last year, and none of them threw the ball instead opting for their Pro Day.
Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images
The Browns will need to look at a slew of guys such as Jaxson Dart, Jalen Milroe, Will Howard, Riley Leonard, Dillion Gabriel, Quinn Ewers, Kyle McCord, Kurtis Rourke, and Tyler Shough.
The thought process is to take a young guy this year, sign a seasoned veteran to be the starter, bring the new guy around slowly, insert him into the backup role, and then let him learn for a year or two. Then see if he is the answer for the next starting quarterback going forward.
And part of the off-season process such as the Senior Bowl and the Combine, is to find the right young guy. For every Josh Allen taken in the first round, there is a Kenny Pickett who was also taken in the first round. There is always a Tristan Wirfs and his four Pro Bowls plus two First-Team All-Pro Honors, and a Super Bowl ring, that gets drafted three slots behind a guy like Jedrick Wills.
There’s been quite a bit written about the pecking order of the quarterbacks beyond Ward and Sanders and exactly where they will be drafted and what round.
This is a big week for all of them – and for Andrew Berry to get this right.
Notes:
- “Q&A on NFL Scouting Combine Invites,” National Football Post, December 20, 2011
- Richard Paolinelli, “Tex Schramm’s Innovative Genius Will be on Display at NFL Combine,” The Star, February 29, 2024
- “History,” NFLCombine.net
- David Suggs, “Why is the NFL Combine Always in Indianapolis?” The Sporting News, February 29, 2024