NFL coaches, scouts and staff executives will not be going to Indianapolis in February for the annual scouting combination, as the league changed the event to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
The combine, carried out in Indianapolis since 1987, will be modified due to the precautions of COVID-19. In a memo obtained by ESPN that was sent on Monday to team executives, coaches, team doctors and principal coaches, the NFL outlined the format for this year’s draft preparation.
Routinely, about 330 of the main recruitment candidates are invited to the combination each year, an event whose official name is National Invitational Camp.
Candidates undergo field training, a battery of psychological tests, personal interviews with individual teams and an extensive medical examination.
This year, all field training will be held on professional days on campus, and Monday’s memo describes that the league will try to have as much uniformity in field training as possible to give teams the ability to compare a team’s training. site to another. The memo does not specifically describe what COVID-19 precautions will be in effect on professional days on campus, but it does indicate that more details on how staff should attend professional days will come later.
All interviews between potential clients and team officials will be conducted virtually, as will psychological tests. The memo states that the interview schedule will be coordinated by the NIC team.
Most medical examinations must be carried out in a combination of virtual interviews between the players and the medical teams of each team, to accompany the examinations carried out in medical facilities close to the client’s home campus.
A selected number of potential customers, the memo said, will be invited to travel to one or more designated sites for a more comprehensive examination – “probably in early April,” according to the memo – which can be attended by a doctor and a sports coach for each team.
These face-to-face examinations are expected to take two or three days. The memo says more details will be sent to the teams in the coming weeks.