I was listening to ESPN radio this morning and the very opinionated Colin Cowherd went on a rant about how meaningless pro days were. He sees no correlation bewteen workout numbers and on field performance. Basically he thought pro days were a waste of time and without benefit to the player evaluation process.
I would have liked to call him and take him to task on his opinion. If his point is that some people put way too much stock in what forty time a player runs, I completely agree. But to say pro days are not beneficial to talent evaluation makes no sense at all to me.
I believe football is much like any business in that the more information you have, the better informed your decision will be. Its hard to compare a defensive back from the University of Texas to a defensive back who plays for McNeese. The level of competition is so different that the film on both players can be deceiving. Its apples to oranges
Pro days, for the most part, allow you to compare apples to apples. A kid listed at 6'1'' in his college program might be 5' 10" at pro day. Pro days give you accurate heights, weights and strength measurements. Forty times are not as easily compared. A kid running a 4.6 forty on a humid day on a slow Miami track might be two tenths of a second faster running on artifical turf on a dry day in Denver. Two tenths of a second in a forty time is the difference between being considered fast or slow in some circles.
For the most part the problem is not with the information one gets at a pro day, its what one does with the information. No doubt some teams, scouts and fans give too much weight to the information from a pro day. I think most teams are more sophisticated than that and use the information as part of a larger puzzle. How does the player do in competition? What is his work ethic? Does he play smart? If a player is a bit slow he might make up more than two tenths of a second with his instincts. Does the player have a knack for being in the right place at the rigth time? Does he seem to make big plays under pressure?
The measureables help for sure. The pro game is for the most part played by big, fast and strong guys. There will be a few smaller and slower guys who can play, but there is some base level of talent usually needed. The fact that Doug Flutie played well doesnt mean that 99% of quaterbacks 5' 9" and under lack the size to play the pro game, regardless of how much game they have.
I think a good example of this is Danny Wuerful. I listened carefully as the pro scouts said he lacked the physical skills to play the pro game. When the Saints drafted him I saw him as the next Joe Montana. He was a great college quaterback with every intangible you could want. He played at a high level at the highest level of collge football.
In his case the scouts were right. Wuerful never was big, fast and strong enough for the pro game. He did not have a big league arm.
My answer to the question posed in the title is that, of course, pro days are important in talent evaluation. Comparable measureables are valuable information and information, in any business, is valuable. Just as in any other business, however, its how you process information that makes a difference. You make a decsion based on all the inforamtion, not just some. Picking one player over another just because he is stronger and faster would be dumb. We all know performance does not directly correlate to physcial measureables. Its dumb to think that. I think its also dumb to assume there is no correlation between performance and measureables.
In the end, most teams have access to the same information on players. Its how they process the information and what relative weight they give to it that separates the good drafters from the bad. Blanket statements that pro days have no mvalue make no sense to me. All information has value. Its how you use it that counts.