Cleveland Browns: Are Pro Days really important?

Feb 27, 2016; Indianapolis, IN, USA; North Dakota State Bisons quarterback Carson Wentz throws a pass during the 2016 NFL Scouting Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports /

The Cleveland Browns will be joining other NFL teams in attending Pro Days in the coming weeks. But is there any value in this exercise?

The 2016 NFL Combine is in the books and we are still 54 days away from the opening round of the 2016 NFL Draft, which means the next few weeks will be filled with prospects holding their Pro Days on college campuses across the country.

Which raises the question: should anyone care?

The importance of attending Pro Days became a talking point for the Cleveland Browns following the spectacular failure of quarterback Johnny Manziel and cornerback Justin Gilbert, the team’s pair of first round selections in the 2014 NFL Draft. Because former general manager Ray Farmer and former head coach Mike Pettine were judicious in attending Pro Days, many pinned the failures of Manziel and Gilbert on the Browns not doing their proper homework.

The thinking is that the Browns would have somehow uncovered some truth about Manziel and Gilbert that would have only been revealed during the agent-manufactured events, thereby avoiding the mistake of drafting them. (Of course, we’re still puzzled as to what the Browns would have learned from Manziel’s Pro Day, which was described as a circus and was more a commercial for athletic apparel than an actual opportunity to evaluate talent.)

That’s not to say that you can’t gain knowledge from a player’s Pro Day. Consider these comments from NFL Network Mike Mayock about a recent first-round quarterback after his Pro Day:

“The key here is not to fall in love what with you see at the very tail end of the process that’s highly publicized, and is the last thing you see, so it can have an impression.” – Sashi Brown on Pro Days

“He made every throw you can make. The ones I wanted to see were outside the numbers. I know he can drive it inside the numbers, I know he can throw the seam, the deep in cuts — he showed me that in the game. What I saw today was the ability to drive it outside the numbers. . . . He showed every throw, he made every throw, and it was really impressive.”

The quarterback? That would be Brandon Weeden.

It is important to remember that attending (or not attending) a particular player’s Pro Day ultimately plays a very minor role in the success of that player. And while the Browns will be active this spring in attending Pro Days – head coach Hue Jackson is on board especially for Cal on March 18, North Dakota State on March 24 and Memphis on April 6 – the team is also taking the approach that what happens under a tightly controlled environment is just a small piece of the puzzle.

“This is the time when the evaluation process gets a lot of publicity, but the reality is it started last spring for a lot of these guys,” executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown told the team’s website. “We do most of our work in the fall. The key here is not to fall in love what with you see at the very tail end of the process that’s highly publicized, and is the last thing you see, so it can have an impression.

“But (we don’t want) to forget the substantive evaluation is really done by our scouts in the fall. The character (evaluations), the medical at this point is really important, but most of the work that we’ve done so far in terms of evaluating these players is in the books and we can’t ignore that.”

More from Dawg Pound Daily

That’s the true takeaway from this process. The Browns didn’t make a mistake in drafting Manziel, for example, because of anything relating to his Pro Day. The mistake came when they got caught up in the excitement of draft night and ignored all the work they had done that told them to avoid Manziel at all costs.

Can attending a Pro Day add to the evaluation process? Jackson apparently thinks so or else he wouldn’t be taking valuable time out of his schedule to attend some of them. But they shouldn’t be more than just one more piece of the puzzle, and in all likelihood a rather small piece. After all, scouts have three to four years of on-field performance to study in creating their evaluations, it’s hard to think of a player drastically changing a team’s perception of him at a Pro Day.

And if he does? Well, if that’s the case, the change that is rolling through team headquarters in Berea may not be as pronounced as Browns fans are hoping for.

The following is a list of scheduled Pro Days, courtesy of NFL.com:

March 7: Auburn, Minnesota, Prairie View A&M
March 8: Connecticut, Illinois State, Jacksonville (Ala.) State, Kansas State, Northwestern, Oklahoma State, Samford, West Georgia
March 9: Alabama, Buffalo, Central Oklahoma, Colorado, Colorado State, Louisville, Marshall, Monmouth (N.J.), Oklahoma, Rutgers, Wisconsin
March 10: Clemson, Fordham, Furman, Harvard, Illinois, Miami (Ohio), Mississippi State, Oregon, Tulsa, Washington State
March 11: Georgia State, Ohio State, Oregon State, Texas Tech, West Alabama
March 14: Bowling Green, Cincinnati, LSU, Manitoba (Canada), Sacramento State, Southern, Toledo, Wake Forest
March 15: Charlotte, Delta State, Grand Valley State, Northwestern State (La.), Ouachita Baptist, Richmond, UCLA, Virginia, Western Michigan, Youngstown State
March 16: Arkansas, Baylor, Boston College, Fresno State, Georgia, Louisiana-Lafayette, Michigan State, Old Dominion, Pittsburgh, San Jose State, Temple, Virginia Tech
March 17: Central Arkansas, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kennesaw State, Penn State, San Diego State, Southeastern Louisiana, Stanford, William & Mary
March 18: Akron, California, Georgia Tech, Kent State, Michigan, Navy
March 21: Iowa, Louisiana-Monroe, North Carolina State, South Florida
March 22: Angelo State, Azusa Pacific, Florida, Grambling State, Iowa State, Louisiana Tech, Montana State, North Carolina, Northern Iowa, Pittsburg State, Texas-San Antonio, Texas State
March 23: Alcorn State, Duke, Liberty, Missouri, North Carolina Central, Ohio, Purdue, Syracuse, Texas, USC, Valdosta State, Weber State
March 24: Arizona, Ball State, Cal Poly, East Carolina, Houston, Lamar, Massachusetts, Missouri Western State, North Dakota State, Rice, Southern Miss, Utah
March 25: BYU
March 28: California-Davis, Ole Miss, South Alabama, Stony Brook
March 29: Florida State, Western Kentucky
March 30: Maryland, Miami (Fla.), SMU, South Carolina, South Carolina State, Southern Utah, Tennessee
March 31: Appalachian State, Boise State, Florida Atlantic, Florida Tech, Middle Tennessee, Notre Dame, TCU, The Citadel, Washington, Yale
April 1: Coastal Carolina, Eastern Washington, Indiana, Jacksonville, Villanova
April 2: Dartmouth
April 4: Arkansas State, West Virginia
April 5: Sam Houston State
April 6: Georgia Southern, Memphis, Texas A&M, Utah State

Next: Team president Alec Scheiner stepping down

The NFL Draft will take place April 28-30 with the Cleveland Browns holding the second overall selection. Follow Dawg Pound Daily for all the latest news on the draft as the Browns work to rebuild their roster.

Home/Browns News