If you ever want to land a spot on an NFL team, you’ll probably need to participate in the famed NFL Combine. The National Football League (NFL) Scouting Combine, which began in 1982, serves as a crucial platform for uncovering essential athletic details about draft-eligible prospects emerging from collegiate football. Receiving an invitation from the NFL to participate in the combine is a distinguished honor, as it offers athletes the opportunity to showcase their abilities in front of an audience of NFL fans and scouts.

Before the combine was established, teams in the NFL recruited players solely on the basis of their collegiate career and performance; this left the league coaches with limited knowledge of players’ medical or physical health heading into draft day. With the establishment of the combine, scouts are able to examine the fundamentals of each player’s athletic game, inherently giving less-known prospects the opportunity to show what they are capable of as well.

The pre-draft event also provides fans the exciting opportunity to witness the future talent of the NFL in a fun, engaging way, which can serve to bolster the players’ confidence during the event and enhance the league’s fanbase.

Here at Palo Alto High School, 15 members of Viking Magazine participated in a mock combine as a part of the Viking Tries series. Each member was assigned one of four positions to determine their respective drills and further mimic the real combine: wide-receiver, quarterback, defensive back, and running back.

The 15 participants were Tyler Harrison, Tyler Martin, Scarlett Frick, and Emil Bothe at quarterback. Luke Joachim, Trey Collins, Josie Vogel, and Alena played wide receiver. For defensive back, Beau Revenaugh, Tyler Frick, Tyler Cheung, and Lucas Tung played; and finally, Sarah Thieman, Nathan Lee, and Avery Reller played running back.

The real NFL combine consists of an array of physical drills and activities, including a bench press, a 40-yard dash, the vertical jump, the broad jump, the 3-cone drill, and several other position-specific drills. Viking attempted to mirror as much of the combine as possible, hosting four different events for the participating members: the 40-yard dash, the broad jump, the vertical jump, and two sets of position-specific drills. Similar to the NFL combine, each Viking participant was assigned a different drill in accordance with their position that aimed to reflect the technical abilities required to excel in their position at the next level.

Each participant’s short-distance speed and acceleration was put to the test during the first drill of the Viking Combine: the 40-yard dash.

The highlights from this drill were running back Nathan Lee (‘26) and wide receiver Trey Collins (‘24) who were the only two to break 5 seconds. Lee ran the fastest time (4.7 seconds), and Collins was a close second (4.9 seconds). In the NFL the average time ran for the 40-yard dash is 4.48, and the fastest was run in 2017 by John Ross at 4.22.

Following this came the broad jump. The NFL record is from Byron Jones in 2015, who jumped 12 feet, three inches. The Viking record was held by Collins, at eight feet, four inches.

Finally came the vertical jump. Gerald Sensabaugh holds the record of 46 inches, set during 2005. Viking’s record is held by Alena Lotterer (‘24) at 21 inches. Perhaps Lotterer, a D1 recruited diver, had a leg up as a result of her sport.

Quarterback Emil Bothe (‘25) noted that during the competition, there was high levels of pressure.

“It was pretty stressful… everybody is watching you [in] high pressure situations,” Bothe said.

Scarlett Frick (‘26) noted that the lack of diversity in the drills made it hard to demonstrate all of her skills.

“I wish we had been given more opportunities to do our specific drills because I feel like I didn’t reach my full potential,” Frick said.

Although some participants may not have performed how they hoped, years of the NFL combine show that bad combines don’t always lead to poor NFL careers. A recent example of this is star rookie wide receiver, Puka Nacua. Nacua was considered a “terrible athlete” after putting up the 34th slowest 40-yard dash out of receivers and a substandard showing of his route running abilities. Despite the comments, Nacua has now broken the all-time rookie receptions and receiving yards record, which has stood for 63 years.

Just because some of our athletes didn’t get to demonstrate the full extent of their skills, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be excellent recruits.

As Emil Bothe (25’) notes, the combine doesn’t always reflect the athlete’s potential or in-game abilties.

“I think that sometimes the combine impacts too much… I would not base your entire draft stock off [the combine] because at the end of the day it is not the same as playing in the game,” Bothe said.

Overall, the Viking combine, just like the NFL combine, provided a fun environment for the athletes to show off their skills, albeit with much less pressure, and nobody’s career on the line.