I can’t stand the NFL combine. It gives me the creeps—all that body evaluation and interrogation, trying to judge value and character on the basis of a passing drill or a quickie interview. And the anonymous-quote sandbagging! NFL scouts love snide anonymous quotes more than White House staffers love snide anonymous quotes. I would pay cash money to read a story full of anonymous quotes from football prospects dishing on NFL scouts:
I saw him take the elevator to go up one flight of stairs, holding a tray of nachos. And he’s questioning my fitness?
I caught him napping during my 40-yard dash. Makes you think twice about promoting him in the front office, unless it’s the Browns front office.
He had raisin oatmeal in his goatee the entire interview. That sort of attention to detail is why they went 6-10 last year.
Still, the NFL combine is a certifiable event—the NFL is genius at turning its drudgery (combine, draft, Thursday night) into television programming, and it’s hard to ignore the story lines. Here are a few from this year’s:
Could Penn State running back Saquon Barkley really go No. 1?
Is UCLA’s Josh Rosen, USC’s Sam Darnold, or Louisville’s Lamar Jackson a franchise quarterback?
What about Wyoming’s Josh Allen or Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield?
Are the Browns still allowed to make their own draft picks, and why?
By the end of this past weekend, however, there was only true story: Shaquem Griffin, the 227-pound linebacker from the University of Central Florida. The 2017 National Champions (13-0), Griffin likes to say. Nick Saban might get grumpy about that wording, but it’s fine with me.
Shaquem Griffin is already my favorite NFL player, and he hasn’t played a single NFL down yet. He hasn’t even been drafted, though after his combine performance, he’s reportedly surged as high as a middle-round pick, maybe even zooming into the second or third round.
Not bad for a guy who almost wasn’t invited to the Indianapolis showcase. But that kind of skepticism is regular fuel for Griffin.
If you don’t know the back story: Griffin was born without a fully-developed left hand. The hand was amputated when he was still a small child. Discouraged from playing tackle football—Griffin wrote memorably about it in an essay for The Players Tribune—he went onto play in high school and college and established himself, late in his UCF career after a long stint on the bench, as a talented defensive player for one of the best college teams in the country.
Griffin feels ready to take the next step—his twin brother, Shaquill, is already a member of the Seattle Seahawks. His background, plus his American Athletic Conference defensive player of the year award in 2016, should have been enough to get him a look. But the skepticism was still there. When the NFL assembled its original list of 330 invites to the Indianapolis event, Griffin’s name wasn’t on it.
He wound up getting a late invite. Which was fine—because Griffin went out and completely destroyed the combine. Watch the videos. The videos are incredible.
The first eye-popper happened in the bench press. Griffin can bench—he outfits his left forearm with a prosthetic which allows him to “grip” the bar and power it upward. One league GM told the NFL Network he’d be impressed if Griffin did five reps.
Griffin ripped 225—20 times. 20! It was nutso, like a scene from a movie.
Then came the run. The 40-yard dash is kind of a fraught exercise in athletic evaluation, but whatever, don’t ruin the vibe. Griffin did the 40-yard dashin a blistering 4.38 seconds—that’s the fastest combine 40 by someone at Griffin’s position since 2003. It’s a full six minutes faster than the NFL Network’s Rich Eisen, the Michigan slowpoke who runs it in a charity fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. (NFL commish Roger Goodell also started a dash, and is due to finish late Thursday afternoon.)
The underside of a feel-good combine story, of course, is that the NFL is a conservative business, and front-office reality might conflict with the feel-good. But Griffin’s potential NFL rivals (or teammates) are raving, from Richard Sherman to Von Miller to J.J. Watt. I believe those three guys know a thing or two about the NFL.
I called my friend Peter Schrager, who’s a football wonk for Fox and the NFL Network. (Schrager had just wrapped a session on a Peloton bike; I neglected to ask him if he puked.) Schrags made his rep as an NFL truth-teller; he’s not the kind of a softie who’s going to turn to goo from an uplifting story.
This is what Schrager said on Griffin: “It went from being a feel-good story to more than that. For someone to run 4.38 and be a linebacker? That’s rare air.” He thinks Griffin will land somewhere in the middle rounds—though it’s possible someone could get excited and take him higher. And Schrager’s also watched the tape of Griffin’s time at UCF. “He’s a speed demon.”
“Nothing comes easy,” Griffin wrote for the Players Tribune. “But I will fulfill that purpose. I have no doubt.’
I don’t need to tell you it’s been a wobbly few years for the NFL, and Griffin is exactly the kind of story and person the league could use in its ranks. But the fun news is that this isn’t a story about optics or inspiration anymore. The combine is a bizarre event, but we all learned something this weekend. Shaquem Griffin can play.
Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com
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