I'm sure that most everyone has asked, at times aloud, how did the combine begin. I know that I have. Since it was kept so secret initially, it seemed like it just appeared on the scene like it had been around for years. Turns out that it had been. We just didn't know it.
I was listening to a podcast on which Gil Brandt was a guest. Brandt and Tex Schramm were the draft gurus for the Dallas Cowboys from the team's birth until Jerry Jones kicked them and coach Tom Landry to the curb. The draft may have started in 1936, but pretty much all that is known about scouting today can be traced Brandt and Schramm. On the podcast, Brandt was telling the story of how he and Schramm saw Kansas QB Nolan Cromwell at an airport with a bunch of packets from different teams. Apparently he was jetting to various teams so that they could check out an injury before the draft. Brandt and Schramm started talking about how much easier things would be if teams and players all met in one place. In the early '80s the scouting combine was born. Initially, medical checks were the main priority of this meeting. Eventually, it evolved into the various testing and drills that take place now. It remained in the shadows throughout the '80s. Opened up a bit more in the '90s as some of the results were eventually leaked to the media. Everything exploded into the circus that we have now with the NFL Network. I should have guessed that Brandt and Schramm were to blame for all of this.
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