As it has been for my entire career in the football business, this is the busiest time on the NFL calendar. It is counterintuitive for many—there are no games being played, players are untethered to their teams and coaches have no players to coach. But it is during this time of year, when facilities are empty and locker rooms are bare, that NFL teams separate themselves. This is when teams are built, managed, architected, assembled and prepared for 2024. The work for coaches and players does not truly begin until much later; right now, it is the front office’s time to shine.
The two areas of football operations that are front and center now are (1) college scouting, and (2) cap space and contract management.
As to the former, once the Senior Bowl ends in late January, all scouting staff—many of whom do not live where the team plays—flock to the home base. They do their most important work from late January until now, grinding through film every day from dawn to dusk in dark War Rooms, preparing the all-important “board” that ranks the prospects, by round, for April’s draft. By the time scouts leave for the combine, the board is pretty much set. Sure, there will be some tweaks and minor revisions based on combine times or pro day results, but the board is primarily built during these long and cold winter days from late January to late February.
As for the cap and contract side, it is all about planning. Scenarios are put together, along with the general manager, depending on certain contract-extension frameworks, free-agent signings and releases (and the dead money accelerations). There may be upcoming cap restructures for some players, and more delicately, cash reductions (pay cuts) for others.
Nonetheless, the combine is an extremely important time, for reasons having nothing to do with scouting.
