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The annual NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis is a wild and wonderful place. But it’s also extremely strange.
On one hand, you have incredible moments like Deion Sanders being blown away by a white dude running a 4.34 40-yard dash. On the other hand, you’ve got the interview portion of the combine where NFL team scouts and execs ask all sorts of weird or inappropriate questions.
Add this one to the list of peculiar combine questions https://t.co/ryCZyFFZFI pic.twitter.com/NSugQ9MBtu
— Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) December 15, 2022
The combine is a veritable cornucopia of fun football stories, and it could be about to change.
You see, nearly 70 percent of all NFL players are black. According to CBS Sports, former NFL player and current league executive Troy Vincent (who is also black) compared certain aspects of the combine to those of “slave auction” during league meetings on Wednesday.
It’s not hard to see his point. Athletes are lined up and measured and assessed in a way that would be deemed absurd in any other situation.
Vincent then told league owners that the league plans to change aspects of the combine. Those aspects include different medical evaluations and potential changes to the interview process.
“We just feel like the overall experience, talking to the players, we can be better in that particular aspect,” Vincent told media later in the day. “So there was, I would say, a good discussion around what that looks like, where we could be, keeping in mind that the combine is the player’s first experience with the National Football League, and in that experience, there has to be dignity. – via CBS Sports
As it turns out, team owners got a little bit upset about this idea.
NFL Owners Angry About Scout Combine Comparison To Slave Auction
Of the 32 team owners in the NFL, 95.3 percent of them are white. Neither of the two minority owners, Shad Khan and Kim Pegula, are black. Meaning there are zero black majority owners in the league.
Unsurprisingly, the owners were upset about Vincent’s comparison. Falcons owners Arthur Blank, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Steelers owner Art Rooney II all offered responses to Vincent.
While Blank and Rooney both boast impressive diversity records within their franchises, Jones cannot say as much. And Jones himself has recently dealt with his own personal controversy.
Though it appears that the process is going to change, whether owners like it or not.