Every February the Indianapolis Colts, or more precisely Lucas Oil Stadium, hosts the NFL Scouting Combine. If you don’t know, the Combine is the gathering (by invitation only) of prospective players who are about to enter the NFL Draft. The Combine includes several drills and events that are designed to gauge an athlete’s performance on and off the field.

To gauge actual on-the-field physical prowess, the NFL Combine uses events such as the 40-yard dash, 20-yard shuttle, 60-yard shuttle and the three-cone drill. The bench press, vertical jump and broad jump are also used to gain a measure on an athlete’s physical abilities. The Combine also includes several tests that get a gauge of an athlete’s mental faculties, including the Wonderlic Test and team interviews.

These tests and others combine to give any team a projection on how well an athlete will perform if chosen by their team. The problem, however, is what is not testable-what is known as an athlete’s intangibles.

These include how a player might influence his team, how fast he will learn the playbook, his decision-making skills, etc. These are not quantifiable, so the Combine cannot accurately test for these abilities.

There are also many inherent flaws in what the Combine can test for. The physical abilities tests can only go so far when giving a team a measure of prospective talent. The 40-yard dash is probably the most popular event and will tell a team how fast an athlete is.

How fast he is without pads in a non-game scenario, that is. The drill cannot allow a team to see how well a running back runs in between the tackles, show them his speed outside of the offensive line or show his ability to make cuts in space.

The catching drills for receivers cannot properly simulate a game experience, so these only show part of an athlete’s ability. The vertical jump may show how high a receiver can leap, but it cannot tell a team whether or not a receiver will fight off defenders and jump for a pass.

There is not a single drill or test at the Combine that can accurately prove how 100 percent capable an athlete is. The best thing the event can show is how fast someone is, how tall he is, how big his hands are and how many repetitions of 225 pounds on bench press he can do. These events are simply somewhat of a stand-in for real, gametime performance.

However, it is the only thing teams have before they sign a player to gauge on-field prowess, other than the player’s college career. A player may look great at the Combine, but the inability to prove their intangibles may create a draft steal or a draft bust by April.