Combine day 2: Strong guys lifting heavy stuff, every RB is the best

For everyone who is trying to ignore the stadium announcement last night, or looking for a distraction, this article is for you. Groups 1-3 finished up medical and hit the bench yesterday.  In my opinion, the bench is probably the least important event at the combine.  Someone put it perfectly yesterday when they said "the bench is only important when someone puts up a worryingly low number."  Most of your strength in punches for OL comes from your back, core, and base.  I'll go ahead and list the top performances, cause it is sexy and impressive, but the numbers you should pay attention too are the low numbers, which for OL is anything below 20.

Top performers

Ereck Flowers won the strongman award for the OL this year with 37 reps of 225 pounds.  Other good numbers were:

• Syracuse OL Sean Hickey (35)
• FSU C Cameron Erving (30)
• Missouri OT Mitch Morse (36)
• WVU OG Mark Glowinski (31)
• Hobart College OG Ali Marpet (30)

Bottom performers

Wisconsin RT Rob Havenstine only managed 16 reps of 225.  Now with him being 6'7 you'd think it's because his arms are a mile long, but he measured in below average, especially for his height, with only 33 3/4" arms.  He also did not show out as a mauling blocker on tape.  This will hurt his draft stock.

The other two sub 20 results were from ASU OL Jamil Douglas who only managed 17 reps at a similar size to Havenstine, and Alabama OL Austin Shepard who also only put up 17 reps but with even shorter arms.

Here is the full list.

Here is what the TE's managed.  Blake Bell had the low number, but keep in mind he was playing QB.

The running backs got weighed in and had impressive numbers across the board.  Short guys made some money here with Duke Johnson coming in at 207 at 5'9 and some change and Ameer Abdullah somehow packing a few more pounds on his frame from the senior bowl getting up to 205 at 5'9.  The 2 backs most often listed as the top backs in the draft, Todd Gurley and Melvin Gordon, both came in at the same height, 6' 5/8", while Gurley had a slight weight advantage 222 vs 215.  None of the RB's lost any money based on their numbers at the weigh in and there were no real surprises besides Abdullah finding a way to add a few more lbs.  Here is the full list.

The wide receivers joined the running backs in the underwear olympics.  The only real shock was that apparently a middle school WR snuck into the combine, JJ Nelson from UAB (allegedly) came in at 5'10 and 156 lbs... yikes.  Dorial Green-Beckham, one of the most controversial prospects in the draft, came in at 6'5 237 lbs and twitter immediately declared him Megatron 2.0.  Here is the full list.

Today the OL and TE's hit the field for drills and the rest of the timed events, RB's and WR's will get on the bench, and the first group of defenders (DL and LB's) will show up to get weighed in.

As always, check back with us for continuing draft coverage.