Combine Is 'Make,' Not 'Make or Break' If You're Already Good

Lower than expected numbers don't generally mean much at NFL Combine, so everybody can just relax

Andy Hodges | Mar 6, 2022

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas fans can just relax over Treylon Burks' lower-than-hoped numbers at the NFL Combine.

Don't get too caught up that.

The drawn-out affair of measuring and timing a bunch of football players is just one step in evaluating.

How big that step is depends on who you ask.

Treylon Burks-Combine — Kirby Lee / USA TODAY Sports

Most NFL people will tell you it can help you, but seldom really hurts anybody. Don't expect Burks not clipping off a 4.3 in the 40-yard dash really matters.

There is a long way to go before draft day and a lot of steps, most of which don't involve anybody breaking a sweat. Whenever his Pro Day is will offer a chance to answer any questions about the numbers.

People will be talking to him in interviews from the teams that will answer any other possible questions people may have.

All the NFL teams have every game film from every game Burks played with the Razorbacks. That answers more questions than any 40 time or how high he can jump.

The questions teams have about every player are much, much deeper than that.

Maybe the biggest question teams ask is to determine just how committed any player is to playing football. For the kind of money they pay these days that usually means 24 hours a day, seven days a week and a day off consists of a few hours here and there.

Well, that's if the player wants to be good and make it to the end of the rookie contract, which is the important one.

After that, money and roster spots are directly related. Guys that get to a second or third contract make plays on and off the field in workouts and those off-season practices that everybody admits gives a whole new meaning to the word "voluntary."

Nothing in the NFL is guaranteed, which is another word that often takes on an entirely new definition in professional sports.

Burks will get an opportunity to show a team what he can do. Nothing in his workouts last week will change that.

And it wasn't the biggest factor. He will be drafted and have a chance.

What he does with it is directly proportionate to how hard he's willing to work at the NFL level ... and that is going to be unlike anything he's every done.

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Published Mar 6, 2022

ANDY HODGES

Sports columnist, writer, former radio host and television host who has been expressing an opinion on sports in the media for over four decades. He has been at numerous media stops in Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi.