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11d • Stories and Experiences
🏈 NFL Player Evaluation - A Brief History
Before the NFL Scouting Combine ever existed, teams evaluated players in very different ways.
📌 In the early days of the league, long before the Super Bowl and centralized scouting, NFL teams depended on:
- Word of mouth from college coaches
- Local contacts and regional scouts
- Newspaper All-American lists and trade magazines
- Limited film (if any) of college games. Scouts literally drafted players based on reputation, newspaper clippings, and trusted recommendations. Teams sometimes had no idea what a player actually looked like in person before draft day.
📌 In the 1970s and early 80s, teams tried to create structure by holding individual team workouts — but this was costly and inefficient since players had to visit each team separately.
📌 Then in 1982, the NFL — through organizations like National Football Scouting, BLESTO, and Quadra — created the first centralized event called the National Invitational Camp (NIC), now known as the NFL Scouting Combine. It standardized drills, physicals, measurements, and evaluations so all teams could see prospects in one place.
This marked a major shift from scattered, informal scouting to a structured, comprehensive evaluation process.
Before radio broadcasts, before widespread film study, and before the Super Bowl spotlight, teams relied on connections and reputation.
Today, it’s a week-long media event — but it all started with the need to evaluate talent more consistently and efficiently.
What memories do you have of this process from the past (if any)?
DBR
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🏈 NFL Player Evaluation - A Brief History
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