Today's Senior Bowl is now seen more as the start of the NFL Draft process. The college all-star games were at one time a celebration of college football. Now these games are just part of the interview process for the NFL. Maybe its always been that way. It just wasn't so obvious. The Senior Bowl has long been the king of these games. It draws the most attention. Especially from the NFL people. It can be surprising that its not the game that brings the scouts, coaches and decision makers. Its the practices. In fact, most NFL people leave by Thursday. They've seen all they need and go home to talk about it. They already have game film on the players. They don't need an all-star game for that. The game has too many rules that cater to offense and safety to gain any real value anyway. The practices provide all the value. The decision makers want to see the players up close. See how they act. See how they respond to coaching. The Senior Bowl brings in professional coaches. Seeing how the players respond to professional coaching paints a better picture. This year the Minnesota Vikings and Washington Redskins coaching staffs accepted those gigs. It goes to teams that didn't fair too well the previous season. Coaching the players can be nice advantage. Hopefully the Vikings can take advantage of it.
The next step for the all-star games, the Senior Bowl in particular, would be to open it up to the players that are leaving school early. The NFL would love that. If its all about the draft and moving to the professional ranks, why not? Often the first round of the draft is littered with juniors. Most left school because they expect to get drafted early. The game organizers will probably have to change the name of the game if its filled with juniors.
On a sad note, former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Greg Cook passed away due to complications from pneumonia. Cook started as a rookie in 1969. He tore his rotator cuff in the third game but managed to finish the season. Remarkably, Cook still led the league in passing. Surgery for an injury such as this has come a long way since then. Cook never really came back. A couple coaches who knew football pretty well, Paul Brown and Bill Walsh, were with the Bengals then. Both considered Cook the most talented quarterback that they'd ever seen. RIP Greg Cook.
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