2024 NFL Scouting Combine Day: LA Rams Group I cheat sheet

What do you look for from the annual NFL Scouting Combine?

There is a perception that the annual NFL Scouting Combine is far more vital to the process of vetting college football players than it may be. After all, by this time, many players have three to four (and perhaps five) seasons of college football to assess, and the Rams scouting department has been vetting players over the course of their college careers.

The annual NFL Scouting Combine is more akin to one last pitstop for teams scouts and personnel executives to see how their targeted prospects stack up to one another. It also ensures a comparative and comparative medical assessment for each invited player. But perhaps most of all, it affords direct access to that player in terms of interviews and interactions, oftentimes the final box to be checked off in the profile packet.

If you rely on the Combine to begin to get excited about college football players, you will have a thrilling time of it this year. There is a lot of superb talent poised to knock on the NFL's front door, but many draft analysts remain all over the place in terms of a true consensus. Even as we have heard names of USC QB Caleb Williams, Ohio State WR Marvin Harrison Jr., and Georgia TE Brock Bowers as clear front-runners by some, there are many other prospects who are eager to showcase their skillsets in this week's events that could knock them from that perch.

Fans are not only in for a treat due to the robust level of talent that will be showcased this year, but by the number of players who truly possess NFL starter potential. With each year, it seems that the net is cast ever wider, and more small school representation shows up in the NFL Scouting Combine. This year is no exception, and it's those small school players who could warrant an extra glance, as they are not always properly assessed by mainstream media prior to events in the NFL Combine.