The annual scouting combine is a perfectly timed piece of business for the NFL. Any earlier and it might be lost in a Super Bowl hangover. Any later and it steps on the toes of free agency announcements and the breathless roster makeovers across the league.
Instead, the tail end of February and beginning of March belong to a week of college stars, clad in spandex and working out to a crowd of millions watching from home. The NFL stokes its own headlines through 40-yard dash times, sound bites from interviews and the vortex of rumors and back-channel chatter that pervades hotel bars in Indianapolis over the course of five nights.
