Now that the NFL Combine has been rolling a couple of days, it’s safe to look back and see which players may have potentially raised their stock through the officially approved combine workouts. If you follow my draft coverage and rankings, you know I don’t put a lot of stock in the combine in comparison to actual game film and results. I’ll let Kenny Powers explain why.
But that’s not to say some men were better at exercising in front of people than others. Now, while I put combine performance down on the list of what can make an good, or even great, NFL player, it doesn’t mean it’s not nice to know how fast a dude can run a 40 and how strong he is. The vertical and long jumps are interesting too and when you combine those results to the film, you then see if a guy has maxed out his potential or maybe has a few gears left that proper coaching might, and I do mean “might,” bring out.
Who made money?
T. J. Logan (North Carolina), Joe Williams (Utah) and Tarik Cohen (North Carolina A&T)
Look at me, instantly contradicting myself by picking the three fastest 40 times among Friday’s running back group, but I can explain this seeming inconsistency by telling you this simple fact; before the combine there was a real chance that none of these guys get drafted at all.
Logan ran a 4.37 40, the fastest of all the running backs by a good 0.04 seconds. He was faster than Florida State’s Dalvin Cook by 0.12 seconds. People noticed. What they also should have noticed is he was never good enough to be the primary back at North Carolina, but he was a dynamic, change of pace back who averaged 8.4 yards per carry his senior year, gained 650 yards and scored seven touchdowns on the ground. He was the team’s primary punt returner for the last three seasons and last year averaged 32.9 yards per return and scored two touchdowns.
Logan was definitely going to get a look in an NFL camp, but there’s a big difference in the contract an undrafted free agent signs and the one a guy drafted in the fifth or sixth round gets. A team looking to shore up its special teams and create some explosion (like the Kansas City Chiefs did last season), will probably now spend a late-round pick on Logan. And that means a nice little signing bonus of $50-75 grand or so.
Joe Williams is a real wild card here with his 4.41 40-yard dash. The things that worked against Logan being an every-down back (he’s 5-9 and weights 196), aren’t a problem with Williams who measured in at 5-11 and 210 pounds. He also put up the numbers for Utah last season, averaging 6.7 yards per carry, gaining 1.407 yards and scoring 10 touchdowns. Williams looks the part of the classic NFL back and was going to get drafted in the sixth or seventh round. Now it may be the fourth or the fifth, which means a bigger signing bonus and makes it less likely the team will cut you in the preseason.
Last up we have Tarik Cohen, who has all the same marks against him that Logan has with a few more. He’s 5-6 and just 179 pounds and played at an FCS school that very few people have even heard of. But against that FCS competition, Cohen performed exactly how an elite player should, by completely dominating the league. He averaged 7.5 yards per carry, rolled up 1,588 yards and scored 18 touchdowns.
The problem for Cohen is the team needed his running back production so much they didn’t just him as a return man on special teams and that’s really where an NFL team will want to put a little guy like him. He fielded one punt, total his senior season for zero yards.
Before the combine, Cohen was unquestionably a UDFA, and I give the odds there 50-50 at best. Now, there’s a real chance he’ll get to hear his name called in the seventh round for a team wanting to develop a special teams weapon and, if he goes to place with a creative offensive coordinator, a Darren Sproles/Taylor Gabriel-type offensive weapon.
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