After a year without it, the NFL Combine is back, and the players are ready to take to the field inside Lucas Oil Stadium to showcase their athletic talents to NFL GMs, scouts, head coaches, and millions of football fans around the world.
The quarterbacks, tight ends, and wide receivers will kick off the event. Some of the game’s most marquee positions on Thursday in primetime. I think the NFL knows what it’s doing. We’ll get most of the top prospects at those positions running the 40-yard dash and participating in the other combine drills tonight.
Follow along here as a bunch of our NFL Draft analysts chime in with their opinions, takeaways, and observations from the first day of workouts at the 2022 NFL Combine.
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Skyy Moore is my biggest draft crush in this class. I’m swooning over that 4.39.
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I knew Skyy Moore was sudden but it helps seeing him register 4.39 top end speed.
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I love Danny Gray from SMU. I won’t be surprised if we are calling him a draft steal in a few years.
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4.33 for Danny Gray. Crazy explosiveness out of the gate too.
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I know Treylon Burks and his camp were expecting faster than 4.55 seconds but that is in line with what he had tested previously.
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Kevin Austin a gigantic winner today at WR. Awesome broad, vertical, and now the 40.
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Sup, Calvin Austin — 4.32 is moving
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The “this QB is a winner” analysis is cringe-worthy to me
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Literally two QBs running in this group?! Wut.
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Only two quarterbacks running the 40-yard dash: Kent State’s Dustin Crum and Notre Dame’s Jack Coan.
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Surprise performer from the WR group — Notre Dame’s Kevin Austin Jr. Had a 39-inch vertical and a 132-inch broad jump. Gotta get back to the film on him.
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Cole Turner’s film is littered with these high-point grabs at Nevada.
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This is a drill that Isaiah Likely and Chiggy Okonkwo should excel in. Quickness underneath.
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And a 118-inch (9’10”) broad jump along with a vertical for Purdue’s productive WR David Bell. Below-average explosion figures. Definitely concerning, but the lack of explosiveness didn’t hurt him in college.
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Memphis WR Calvin Austin had an 11-foot, 3-inch broad jump. Gigantic number. He’s tiny but that’s going to boost his stock.
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Not a good number for Burks, especially if you’re asking him to translate to more of a boundary role. I thought he looked better working on a vertical plane but that certainly does not help his case.
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Meanwhile, among the wide receivers…
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DJ’s segment there on Dulcich just proves analysts can watch the same film and see things differently. I don’t really view the UCLA TE as a smooth mover. He’s very linear.
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My dude Okonkwo in at an official 4.52. Nice. And DJ is right… 4.61 from Jelani Woods is damn good.
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From that… my Top 5 at the TE spot before the combine looked like this — 1. Jeremy Ruckert 2. Trey McBride 3. Jake Ferguson 4. Jelani Woods 5. Isaiah Likely then Wydermeyer and Okonkwo
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My TE1 — Ohio State’s Jeremy Ruckert must be working out with the other TE group. He’s the most complete TE in this class…according to me for whatever that’s worth haha
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Connor Heyward just smashed that gauntlet. You can see the strength in his hands.
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Okonkwo running a tick slower than his low 4.5 speed aligns with what he showcased on film. Wasn’t always incredibly fast. Felt like he was a great change-of-pace type.
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I just don’t know how often McBride is going to separate at the next level. Not a super-sudden athlete. Does everything else very well.
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Connor Heyward showing off his soft hands. Those appear on film too.
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Cole Turner… not a blocker. The team that drafts him will be doing so for his speed and soccer net size catch radius.
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Maybe I’m crazy, but I really don’t care much about blocking at the TE spot today, and like 90% of the TE prospects I scout simply aren’t going to be very good in the trenches at the NFL level. And that’s OK… if they can catch, separate and threaten the seam with their speed.
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I did but that was an old grade. After watching him again this year, and knowing that he would be a little slower, he dropped down the board. He’s probably a late Day 2-early Day 3 type guy now.
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