I pulled the above partial quote from another thread, because it mentions an issue that I have thought about since reading an article several years ago. Issues presented in the article:
Most of the better college players now drop out of school as soon as their seasons are done, and spend months and months training specifically to do well on the combine events, not to become better "football athletes".
Especially WRs, DBs and RBs spend countless hours perfecting a sprinter's start so as to do well in the 40 yd time. This has little carryover to football actions, and training for an explosive straight-line sprint may actually be detrimental to the fluid angling cutting and adjusting sprinting a football player does.
Similar concerns were raised about vertical and broad jumps, that the training to do well at the combine does not correlate well to the actions of a football player.
Should the events be modified to more closely correlate to football actions? Maybe, for example, the sprint starting with an untimed 5 yard lead in after a standing start.
With so many players refusing some or all events, others performing at record levels, but not being capable NFL football players; is the combine still of value?