Combine this

It's Combine Week in the National Football League, one of the highlights of the NFL season by the Blob's lights, because it raises the Shield's obsession with minutiae and nonsense to levels even more hysterically absurd than usual.

Here's the key thing to remember about the combine, for instance: It's not about determining who can play football  among the latest crop of potential draft picks/future head trauma victims. It's about Big Guys In Shorts Running Sprints And Answering A Bunch Of Dumb Questions To See Who Cracks Under The Pressure.

In pure football terms, see, the NFL teams already know everything they need to know about these guys, especially the potential first-rounders. They've watched tape on them until their eyeballs fell out. They've analyzed them for all manner of arcane metrics: linemen for Waist Bending, running backs for Burst, defensive backs for (in at least one famous instance) Tight Skin.

No, really. One year, an analyst actually said one of the upsides about former Colts DB Marlin Jackson was that he had "tight skin." I have no idea what the man was talking about, or even if he was entirely sober.

And as for quarterbacks ...

Well. They've been scrutinized more than any other position, because more than any other position a quarterback can make or break your franchise. Which is why, when USC's Sam Darnold was criticized for opting out of throwing at the combine, it wasn't because teams wouldn't get to see if he could throw the 20-yard sideline route. It was because it was taken as a sign he didn't want the challenge of throwing in less-than-optimum conditions, thereby (theoretically, anyway) calling into question his competitiveness.

No one at the combine wants to see if Darnold and the other high-end QBs can play, see. They already know they can play. It's not a Can He Make All The Throws test; it's a Jesus, Please Don't Let Him Be Another Ryan Leaf Or Johnny Manziel test.

(The Blob's leader in the clubhouse in the latter: Baker Mayfield. Grabbing your crotch and screaming F-bombs at Kansas, for God's sake? That's some vintage Leaf right there.)

And so it's all about getting them in a room and asking them weird questions,. The NFL being the Kremlin-esque construct it is, we get only fleeting reports on just how weird the questions are. But we do know prospects have been asked in the past if they liked boys, or if they thought their mothers were attractive. And then there was the famous time Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland asked Dez Bryant if his mom was a hooker.

Presumably the intent of the question was to see if Bryant would get angry. He didn't take the bait, which (again, presumably) was a point in his favor.

Me?  I would have counted it as a point in his favor if he'd leaped over the desk and grabbed Ireland by the throat. 

"Displays great aggressiveness!" I would have scribbled.

Anyway ... the Blob has noted before that the nature of the questions reveals far more about the people asking them than it does about the prospects. Judging from what we know, for instance, there are apparently a few GMs in the league who have serious mommy issues.

But, again, it's not about football here. It's about how you handle yourself. In that regard, the NFL combine is remindful of those scenes in "The Right Stuff" where they're putting the astronaut candidates through a bunch of goofy physical tests that are really psychological tests.

Remember that dour nurse, always taking notes?

Don't even try to tell me her doppelganger isn't at the combine this week. Don't even.