Everything changes when the spandex comes on. We spend months watching college tape, charting every snap from a Saturday night in Death Valley or a snowy afternoon in Ann Arbor, only to have our entire world flipped upside down because a defensive tackle ran a 4.78. It's madness. Honestly, the NFL Scouting Combine is basically a track meet where the prizes are multi-million dollar contracts.
Draft season is here.
When we talk about combine winners and losers, we aren't just talking about who is fast. We are talking about money. We are talking about draft capital. If a projected third-round pick suddenly leaps 40 inches vertically, he’s not a third-round pick anymore. He’s a Friday night highlight and a GM’s new obsession. But here is the thing: the track doesn't have pads. The 40-yard dash doesn't have a 300-pound offensive lineman trying to punch you in the throat.
The High Stakes of Being a Combine Winner
Take a look at Anthony Richardson. Remember 2023? Before Indy, he was a polarizing "project" out of Florida. People loved the arm, hated the completion percentage. Then he showed up at the Lucas Oil Stadium. He didn't just participate; he broke the event. He set records for the broad jump and vertical jump for quarterbacks. He ran a 4.43. Suddenly, he wasn't a project. He was the fourth overall pick. That is the power of becoming a combine winner.
It’s about "traits."
NFL coaches are arrogant. They truly believe they can teach a fast guy how to play football, but they know they can’t teach a football player how to be fast. If you have the raw materials—the length, the explosiveness, the sheer twitch—you are going to climb boards.
Xavier Worthy and the Need for Speed
We have to talk about Xavier Worthy. In 2024, he broke John Ross's long-standing record by clocking a 4.21. Think about that. Most people can't even process information that fast. The stadium went silent, then it erupted. Before that run, Worthy was seen as a skinny, talented receiver who might go late in the first round. After that run? He became a lock.
The Kansas City Chiefs saw that speed and moved up to get him. Why? Because you can’t coach 4.21.
But history is a cruel teacher. For every Chris Johnson (who was a legit star), there is a John Ross or a Darrius Heyward-Bey. These are the guys who won the combine but couldn't consistently win on a Sunday. Speed is a tool, not a finished product. If you can't beat press coverage or find the soft spot in a zone, that 4.21 is just a really fast way to get to the sidelines after an incomplete pass.
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Why Some Stars Become Combine Losers
Then you have the "losers." This label is often unfair, but the NFL is a cruel business.
Usually, a loser is someone who was expected to dominate and didn't, or someone whose "game speed" didn't translate to the stopwatch. Look at someone like Kyle Hamilton. Coming out of Notre Dame, he was heralded as a generational safety. Then he ran a 4.59. People panicked. Scouts started whispering that he didn't have the range to play single-high safety in the league. He dropped to the 14th pick.
The Baltimore Ravens just laughed. They took the "loser" and watched him become an All-Pro almost immediately.
Hamilton’s tape was elite. His instincts were off the charts. But because he didn't "win" the underwear Olympics, his stock took a hit. This happens every single year. A player who is a certified "dawg" on film shows up and looks sluggish in drills. Maybe they had a bad start. Maybe they were nursing a hamstring tweak they didn't tell anyone about.
The Medical Red Flag
Sometimes you lose the combine before you even step on the field. The medical checks are the most important part of the week, even if the fans never see them.
Imagine being a top-tier edge rusher. You’ve had a clean bill of health all year. But then the NFL doctors get their hands on you. They find a "stinger" issue or a degenerative knee condition you didn't even know was a problem. Suddenly, you're "falling." You didn't even run a drill, but you're one of the biggest combine winners and losers stories of the week. This is what happened to players like Nakobe Dean. He was a superstar at Georgia, but medical concerns pushed him all the way to the third round.
It’s brutal. It’s also why some agents tell their players to skip the testing entirely.
Separating the Signal from the Noise
If you want to actually understand who helped themselves, you have to look at the "thresholds."
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NFL teams have specific physical requirements for positions. If you’re an offensive tackle and your arms are shorter than 33 inches, some teams will literally cross you off their first-round board. They think you can't keep pass rushers off your chest. If you measure in at 32 and a half? You just lost millions of dollars.
It sounds crazy because it is. Half an inch.
- Hand size for QBs: If it's under 9 inches, get ready for the "he can't hold the ball in the rain" narrative.
- Weight for WRs: If a guy like Jordan Addison weighs in at 173 pounds, scouts worry about him getting jammed into the turf by veteran corners.
- 10-yard split: This matters way more than the full 40. It shows "get off" and initial burst.
You've got to watch the drills, too. The "Gauntlet" drill for receivers isn't about speed; it's about tracking the ball and hand-eye coordination. When a guy looks natural catching passes while sprinting, that's a win. When he's double-catching or turning his head too early, that's a red flag.
The Interview Room
This is where the real wins happen. Behind closed doors, coaches are trying to break these kids. They put them at a whiteboard and ask them to draw up a play they ran three years ago. They ask them weird, sometimes borderline inappropriate questions just to see how they react under pressure.
C.J. Stroud faced a ton of scrutiny about his S2 Cognition test scores. People called him a "loser" of the pre-draft process because of a leaked test result.
He went out and had one of the best rookie seasons in the history of the sport.
It just goes to show that the combine is a piece of the puzzle, but it isn't the whole picture. If a guy is a leader, if he's "football smart," and if he has a high motor, a slow 40-yard dash isn't going to stop him. But if a guy has all the physical tools and "fails" the interview? That’s when the red flags start waving.
How to Evaluate the Results Yourself
When the numbers start rolling in this year, don't just look at the top-line speed.
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Check the Relative Athletic Score (RAS). This is a metric created by Kent Lee Platte that grades players on a scale of 0 to 10 based on their measurements compared to their position group. A player might run a 4.50, which sounds "slow," but if he weighs 260 pounds, that is actually an elite score. Context is everything.
Don't get fooled by the hype.
Every year, there is a "workout warrior." This is the guy who has been training specifically for these five drills for three months. He looks like a Greek god. He jumps out of the gym. But then you go back and look at his college stats and he had two sacks in three years.
That guy is a trap.
Actionable Insights for Draft Fans
If you're following the combine winners and losers to get an edge on your dynasty fantasy football draft or just to be the smartest person at the water cooler, follow these rules:
- Ignore the 40 for most positions. Unless it’s a wide receiver, corner, or a "burner" running back, the 10-yard split tells you more about football speed.
- Watch the feet, not the hands. In the 3-cone drill, look for "sink" in the hips. If a player has to take three steps to change direction, he’s going to get cooked by NFL route runners.
- Weight matters. A fast time at a low weight is less impressive than a slightly slower time at a "pro-ready" weight.
- Follow the beat reporters. They are the ones hearing the whispers about who "crushed" the interviews. That information is ten times more valuable than a broad jump distance.
- Trust the tape first. If a player looks fast on film but runs slow at the combine, trust the film. If he looks slow on film and runs fast at the combine, be very, very careful.
The combine is a tool for confirmation. It should confirm what you saw on Saturday. When it contradicts the film, that’s when the real scouting begins. You have to go back and ask why there's a disconnect. Maybe the player was misused. Maybe he was injured. Or maybe, just maybe, he's just an athlete who happens to be wearing a football uniform.
The real winners aren't always the ones holding the trophies in April. They're the ones who use the combine to prove they belong, then spend the next decade proving everyone who doubted their "numbers" wrong.
Keep your eyes on the 3-cone and the short shuttle. Those are the drills where the real pros separate themselves from the track stars. If a big man can move his feet like a dancer, you’ve found a first-rounder. If a fast man can't turn a corner, you’ve found a bust. It's as simple—and as complicated—as that.
Pay attention to the "unofficial" times, but wait for the lasers. Every year, someone "breaks the record" on a hand-timed run, only for the official clock to add a tenth of a second. In the NFL, a tenth of a second is an eternity.