Agents Claim NFL Combine Changes Will Have Top Prospects Skipping Drills Next Year After Brutal 2020

The NFL decided to spruce up the Combine in an attempt to boost ratings, as they chose to move the athletic testing drills to a primetime spot rather than early in the morning.

While this could have given ratings a bit of a bump, it was not well received by the players. Agents in Indianapolis warned of a potential boycott if this schedule is kept next season, as they deemed it too much of a deviation from their players' usual training schedule.

Spoke with a few agents in Indy who said they'll consider having their prospects skip the drills because it's so far removed from their typical training schedule. Can't risk injuries. https://t.co/8SX279Mtr1
— Matt Verderame (@MattVerderame) March 3, 2020

Plenty of top prospects, like Auburn's Derrick Brown, Iowa's AJ Epenesa, and Georgia's Jake Fromm struggled in Indianapolis, and the time change and long waits might be a part of it. Players like Oklahoma's Kenneth Murray and LSU's Patrick Queen also came down with injuries during these drills.

The reason the Combine was done early in the morning in years past was to remove any external factors that could alter times (i.e. what a player ate that day, what physical activity he performed) and put everyone on a somewhat level field. The fact that players were sitting around for several hours is a reasonable explanation for some injuries and disappointing times, especially in the speed and agility drills.

Shifting so many NFL combine events to primetime has worked for TV, but it's left lots of prospects waiting around for hours. And many prospects and their agents aren't happy about that. https://t.co/H48oFUvZPU
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 3, 2020

Expect pro day numbers for most of these prospects to look a LOT better than they did in Indianapolis, as working out earlier in the morning instead of 7 p.m. might shave a few tenths of a second off of their 40 time.