Source: Marshall Ferguson – CFL.ca
Date: March 16, 2021
(excerpt)
With COVID-19 still lingering menacingly, the CFL has gone virtual for all combines in 2021. Getting consistent data is difficult under any circumstances, but done individually with differing approaches and standards despite best efforts is sure to create mayhem on the numbers.
Highlights of this new approach include:
• All combine invitees (national and regional) will provide their medical history (with input from their school therapist/doctor).
• All combine invitees will fill out a personal questionnaire.
• Clubs would be responsible for setting up and conducting national player video interviews.
• The league will conduct and record video interviews with global participants with standard questions and distribute to each club. The clubs will also have the option to perform video interviews with global participants.
• The league will establish protocols and guidelines to have each combine (national, regional and global) participant conduct and film themselves performing select tests and positional drills in a safe environment with the league distributing to the clubs by a certain date.
Thankfully for many decision makers, all those digits get is a cursory glance on the way to watch film or interview a prospect; those remain the truest tell of a players’ fit with each organization.
Combine numbers hold a unique place in football evaluation. For some players they matter more than others and can vault you into the top of the draft when paired with game film. For others, the speed and movement drills can be a damning red flag that calls into question a prospect’s ability to sustain at the physical level required to be a pro football player.
With all that in mind, I took a look back at some of the very best CFL national combine performances of the last decade to celebrate simpler times and to remind ourselves where some of the Canadian names most synonymous with CFL football planted their flag to declare they were ready for the next level.
…
A few years before he blew up the CFL regional combine I learned of Jay Dearborn. Local coaches from my hometown of Kingston, Ontario raved about him and the hype was real in 2019 when one of the tallest defensive back prospects ever showed lower body explosion in the jumping tests we’ve never seen before.
Jay Dearborn 