Behind the Scenes at the 2022 Seahawks Media Combine
Much to my excitement - and to the chagrin of those many poor souls whose eyes were forced to witness it - the Seahawks opened the doors to their indoor practice facility at the VMAC to host their third-ever media combine event, allowing has-been athletes such as myself to test my mettle in a series of tests and drills.
Knowing how I'm programmed, if I would have known about this showcase more than six days ahead of time, I would have been waking up at 6 AM regularly to run sprints and work on my jumping skills in preparation. But the last minute warning didn't allow for that - the PR department joked (or maybe they weren't?) that was done on purpose - and like the rest of my competitors, I arrived in anything but peak condition sporting a "I like pizza too much" body.
Now entering my elderly years as an athlete at the age of 33, with bulky knees on top of it from taking too many hits as a running back back in the day, I made sure to stretch for 45 minutes before the festivities began. While there was some angst about others watching me perform athletic tests, I admittedly was far more nervous about popping a hamstring or tearing an ACL or tripping and getting a bloodied nose from turf burn. My only real goal was to get out of the event in one piece.
Breaking us into a couple of groups after some inspirational talk from former Seahawks receiver Michael Bumpus, I started my nostalgic journey foraying into athletic testing with the broad jump. Even when I was in high school, this wasn't an event I typically fared well in. I don't know if it's because I have clown feet weighing me down - a 5-foot-11 guy should not have size 15 shoes! - or other factors, but launching my body forward never amounted to much air time.
Sure enough, my first test didn't go so hot. While I swung my arms violently hoping to squeeze out a few extra inches in the air, gravity won as expected. All 235 pounds came crashing down to the turf like a bowling ball sliding off a kitchen table after an underwhelming 89-inch jump. To put in perspective, only 20 players since 2000 at the NFL combine have produced a shorter jump and only two of those players were under 300 pounds.
If I had one thing going for me, it was consistency. My second jump was also 89 inches, so I clearly maximized on my not-so-impressive leaping ability. Carry on.
Unfortunately for me, testing of my plyometric aptitude wasn't quite over yet. Next, I transitioned to the vertical jump, an event that I have always performed a bit better in than the broad jump for whatever reason. While I never work on broad jumps, I do mix in jump rope and squat jumps in my workout routine, so I expected this one to unfold a bit more favorably.
Admittedly, staffers at the event didn't exactly measure actual vertical jump. Our heights and reach weren't calculated and instead, they just had every person write down the height they managed to hit after leaping upward and connecting with a set of retractable prongs jutting from a pole. Careful to avoid landing with my big feet on the wheels at the bottom of the contraption, I made it about three-quarters of the way up the prongs for an 8-foot-5 inch measurement.
For better or worse, after driving home, I took the liberties of seeing how high I actually jumped. Accounting for my height and reach (84 inches), I posted a quite unremarkable 17-inch vertical jump. No player has ever jumped less than 17 1/2 inches in the event at the combine in the past 22 years, so yeah, that makes me feel great about my athletic prowess. Nobody is going to be calling me Air Corbin anytime soon.
Desperate for a confidence booster like many of the other reporters and influencers around me, I found just that moments later. While my athletic traits have all but disappeared over the past decade and a half and aren't coming back, I showed my hand-eye coordination remains elite in the gauntlet, a popular receiving drill done annually at the NFL combine.
To start the drill, the receiver turns 180 degrees to catch a pass, then turns back around to catch another pass. From there, receivers run straight down a yard line while receiving a series of passes from quarterbacks on alternating sides, which gauges how quickly a player picks up the flight of the ball and tests focus while on the move to see the ball in for a catch.
While many of my competitors chose to wear gloves, I did not. After catching my first two passes, I ran like a gazelle down the line - okay, maybe not the best animal for an example, but give me some credit! - and plucked the ball out of the air with ease. Even on one throw that was way out in front of me, I tracked it down and showed off my soft hands, flawlessly executing the drill.
My self-esteem had been restored, albeit for only a brief moment, as I fist bumped fellow reporters Mike Dugar and Brady Henderson, who represented our beat writers well with flawless gauntlet runs of their own. With three drills out of the way, all of us walked down to the other side of the field for the much-dreaded finale: running the 40-yard dash. If we hadn't already torched our hamstrings and quads or messed up our knees or ankles, this event would surely do the trick.
Hoping to avoid having to visit the doctor who was on site at all costs, I joined many others along the side wall stretching, almost in a panic. By the time it was my turn to go, I was already wicked in sweat from doing a bunch of five-yard reps working on getting out of a track stance, which has never been natural to me since I played baseball instead.
Out of an unorthodox, not very technically-sound stance - next time, I'm going to make sure I've gotten some proper training to maximize my start - I didn't have the cleanest footwork out of the gate. My initial 10-yard split was probably a disaster on par with the horrible combine face posted by the Seahawks on social media, but I recovered somewhat and once the old train got rolling, I thought I finished strong during the final 20 yards. The final reading? 5.5 seconds.
Considering it had been almost 15 years and 20 pounds since I ran a timed 40, I was satisfied with the time even if the video footage more closely resembled a sloth than a sprinter. As Seahawks safety Quandre Diggs made sure to rib me about the day after, it's probably not a time worth bragging about. At least on the flip side he complimented my catching skills in the gauntlet. I'll take that!
Kudos to Dugar and Seahawks staffer Chris Whitehead, who both ran under 4.9 seconds. That's extremely impressive, as most fans don't understand how difficult it is to post a sub-5.00 second time. NFL players are ridiculous compared to the rest of us normal human beings and stand out as 0.000001 percent of the athletic population. There's a reason 300-plus pound men running that fast aren't seen often.
All in all, after begging for this event to return the past several years, it was a blast getting a chance to compete against many of my peers, though I would have loved for the bench press to be brought back as a fifth event. It would have been fun to pump some iron along with the sprinting and jumping. But the good news is that I didn't have to embarrass myself trying to run the 3-cone or short shuttle. Most importantly, I can take solace in the fact nobody suffered a significant injury. That's a win by itself for any of us in the media.
As for next year, you better believe I'll be much better prepared and the calendar is already marked for the entire month of March in anticipation. I already started running some 40s this morning and plan to get some box jumps in several days a week from hereon out. Dugar, Henderson, and everyone else better be ready!
