Who's Hot & Who's Not - The NFL Combine

Which players generated the most positive buzz, and which ones saw their stock drop after the NFL Combine weekend? The offensive players are first with former Notre Dame QB Brady Quinn the talk of many scouts, for good and bad.

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Here's the basic rule of thumb coming out of the NFL combines: everyone has a notion of who they like and who they don't, but a player can either up his stock big-time by putting up great numbers, or get knocked off the map with a horrible workout. If a prospect is merely average, that's good enough. In other words, it's all about not screwing up if you're not going to go ballistic.

Based on the rumors, scuttlebutt and talk among the scouts and the pro types, here are the Hot and Not offensive players coming out of the combines in Indianapolis after the weekend's workouts.

Who’s Hot …

Adrian Peterson
Already the top running back on just about everyone's draft board, Peterson went lights out in his workout running a sub-4.4 in the 40, leaping 38 1/2 inches, and doing a standing broad jump of 10'7" (tied with Arizona's Chris Henry for the best in the group). The numbers were just half of the story. He did all this after finding out his half-brother was shot and killed, when he could've very easily have postponed his workout. Talk about high-character player; Peterson might have gone from a sure-thing top ten pick to a sure-thing Cleveland Brown at the three.

Greg Olsen
It was a 50/50 split over who the top tight end was going to be between Arizona State's Zach Miller and Miami's Greg Olsen. Debate over. Olsen checked in at a rock-solid 6-5, 252 pounds, wasn't bad in the cone drills, and then left jaws dropped with a 4.51 40. The next top tight end on the day ran 4.71. Considering the history of Miami tight ends in the NFL, Olsen appears to be a lock to go in the top 20, maybe even top 15.

Joe Thomas
Already a certain top five prospect, the former Wisconsin Badger made himself a ton of money and solidified himself as a top three selection, and likely the number two overall to Detroit, by working out when he didn't have to (he could've easily waited and done a special workout on his own) and running a tremendous 4.92 40, cranking out a decent 28 reps of 225 pounds (the norm for an offensive lineman is 24), finishing second among the offensive linemen with a 33" vertical leap, and second in the broad jump going 9'2". He'd likely be considered the top prospect in this draft if it wasn't for ...

Calvin Johnson
The former Georgia Tech star wasn't expected to run, and didn't even have the right shoes, but after borrowing a pair from East Carolina QB James Pinkney, he ripped off a 4.35 in the 40, tied with UCF's Mike Walker for the third fastest time among receivers behind Kansas State's Yamon Figurs and Washington State's Jason Hill. Expect the debate for Oakland to last from now until late April about whether or not they want to go quarterback with a near-perfect receiver prospect there for the taking.

Chris Henry
Who? The Arizona running back wasn't given too much consideration in a weak draft for runners, but he had everyone buzzing after running sub-4.4 40s, tied for the longest broad jump among the backs, and jumped a respectable 36 inches. Oh yeah, and he weighed in at a tight 230 pounds. He went from being a second-day guy to a top 75 pick in one day.

Who’s Not …

Brady Quinn
Oh those nutty, wacky scouts. It's almost as if no one seemed to notice how Quinn got the spit beaten out of him behind a porous offensive line last year while JaMarcus Russell, the hot prospect on the block, got ten days to find his receivers behind the LSU front five. Even so, Quinn's stock is starting to plummet with some mock drafts having him going somewhere around 16th to Green Bay to 23rd to Kansas City. Why? Two reasons.

One is David Carr. Quinn and Carr are almost exactly alike as far as physical attributes, arm strength, and talent coming out of college. You can get Carr from the Texans for a bag of Fritos and a hearty handshake. Second, there are other, better overall prospects on the board that everyone seems to be hot for in the top 15 picks.

Quinn has prototypical NFL size, two years of work under Charlie Weis, and unlike Matt Leinart, who everyone is comparing Quinn's possible draft situation to after the former USC star slipped to tenth last year, he's ridiculously strong cranking out an offensive lineman-like 25 reps of 225 pounds. In the end, watch for him to go eighth to Houston. At least he'll go early in the first round, unlike his former teammate ...

Darius Walker
Weis was floored when he was informed Walker was leaving school early for the NFL, and in hindsight, it appears to have been a disastrous choice money-wise. Walker has good hands and nice quickness, but he needed to be somewhere in the 4.4 range to generate any sort of a buzz, but he ran a 4.56, which might not seem like much, but was one of the slowest running back times of the day for a player of his size. On the plus side, the led all the backs with a vertical leap of over 40 inches.

Gary Russell
Think Maurice Clarett without the truly troubled baggage. Considered an interesting mid-round prospect coming into the weekend because of his combination of size and scoring ability inside the five, he had a year off to prepare after failing academically at Minnesota, came to the combine heavy, cranked out a mere eight reps of 225 and ran a horrifically slow 4.80 40. It'll be a shock if he's drafted.

Zach Miller
Everyone was thinking he'd be Todd Heap Part 2, and while he caught the ball well and showed excellent quickness in the cone drills, he lost the number one tight end slot to Miami's Greg Olsen after running a brutally slow 4.83 (compared to Olsen's 4.47). He'll still likely go in the first round, but it'll be in the mid-to-late 20s rather than the mid-teens.

The top receivers other than Calvin Johnson
Ted Ginn didn't run because of a sprained foot, Dwayne Bowe, everyone's darling after the Senior Bowl, ran a pedestrian 4.51, Dwayne Jarrett chose not to run after rumors were swirling around that he was running 4.7s in pre-Combine workouts, and Sidney Rice couldn't crack the top ten in receiver times unable to break the 4.5 mark.