Why Pro Days Are Overrated

Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK

Welcome to draft month! As the calendar has now officially shifted to April, this is a crucial month for not only the draft prospects who will be taking the stage in Kansas City at the end of the month, but also the 32 general managers in the league who will all look to greatly improve their own respective roster through the draft.

As draft season is slowly but surely coming to a close as the weeks start to fly by leading up to the draft, the pre-draft process is pretty much over for every prospect who looks to get their name called by commissioner Roger Goodell.

The pre-draft process is composed of three parts: All-star games such as the Senior Bowl and East West Shrine Bowl, the combine, and pro days. All three parts of the pre-draft process help boost a prospects draft stock, but one part of it inflates a prospects draft stock way more than it should compared to the other two parts of the process. That you ask, would be the pro day.

To put it in simplest terms, the pro day is just an event held for one or more prospects from a respective school who go through drills in tee shirts and shorts in front of ownership groups, general managers, and coaching staffs.

You are now probably thinking to yourself, “Oh, what a great opportunity for these players to show off their talents to all of these people watching them.” And yes, although that is true, I am here to tell you that pro days are to a very great degree overrated.

While you may be in the camp that pro days boost a player’s draft stock, because they ultimately do, look no further than New York Jets quarterback Zach Wilson.

Before Wilson was drafted by New York second overall in the 2021 NFL Draft, he arguably had the best pro day ever by a quarterback, highlighted by a throw that broke the internet. If you have not seen the throw yet, just search “Zach Wilson pro day throw” and you will be able to find it in a matter of seconds.

Wilson’s pro day was an icing on the cake and the last piece of evidence Jets General Manager Joe Douglas and Head Coach Robert Saleh needed to solidify their selection of Wilson with the second overall pick. Look at how that selection has banned out, not great to say the least as the team is now on the verge of acquiring Aaron Rodgers after the Zach Wilson experiment has greatly failed and blown up in the Jets faces.

My point here is that you cannot take any stock into account for any prospect’s pro day, even if it is someone like Wilson who made several general managers drool over the Patrick Mahomes like throws he made during his pro day two years ago.

At the end of the day, a pro day is just an event for a prospect to show off their skills and talents in front of the teams and organizations that are interested in them. Not to mention, these prospects have so much time to script, prepare, and master the drills they will be running at their pro days as these are not in game and live scenarios with so many other surrounding factors and players on the field looking to take your head off.

The only thing that causes a bad pro day for a player is if they either get hurt, show organizations that they are not in the same playing condition they are on film, or simply do not master the drills ran to perfection with relative ease.

In today’s day and age, it is so easy to fall in love with a quarterback prospect after they make a throw or throws during their pro day which breaks the internet much like Wilson’s infamous throw. However, you have to realize that these quarterbacks have these throws scripted, practice before their pro day, are throwing indoors with a tee shirt and shorts on, and are not in live game situations facing eleven defenders on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

Yes, while the throw might be pretty and the ball comes out as a tight spiral, much, if not all of the pre-draft work and prep is already done by the scouts and general managers before the pro days even take place. Hence, the pro day is essentially just a talent show and an opportunity to just not tank your draft stock in any way or aspect. The interaction with the scouts, coaches, and general managers present at the pro days also helps too, although these interactions are what the all-star games and combine are for more than anything.

So, if you are a fan of a franchise picking high in the draft who looks to draft their next franchise quarterback and find yourself going back to any of the top quarterback prospects in this year’s draft class pro days, save yourself the time and don’t go back to them, because in the end pro days don’t matter and do not play any effect into any prospects NFL career.