There are those in the NFL gambling community that swear by the NFL Draft combine. And then there are those in the NFL gambling community who couldn’t think of a bigger waste of time than the NFL Draft combine.

The combine on a purely conceptual basis is a terrific idea. Get the top players in the country and the top NFL Draft prospects to go to Indy and work out in a way that allows the NFL gambling franchises a look at the young men they are about to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in. The only problem is that in practice, it doesn’t really work out that way.

The top players often decline to attend and those that do attend often decline to participate in the key drills. QBs are infamous for declining to throw here and prefer to do so at their own Pro Days with their own receivers and the results tend to be skewed because of the familiarity. There are many who say that the Combine actually has a negative effect on the draft process.

As is often the case the workouts only boost the stock of players that otherwise wouldn’t have any business being drafted. How often do we hear of a player who puts up huge Combine numbers, see his draft stock sky rocket, only to be out of the league in two years. The Combine also penalizes productive players that perhaps don’t run a mind-blowing 40 but simply know how to play the game as their stats suggest. But until there’s a better system devises this is still the best indicator we have.