Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston went into the NFL scouting combine as the consensus top quarterback prospects in this year’s draft.

There was no NFL Scouting Combine in 1982 when I graduated from Duke University and was looking to carve out a career in the NFL.

There was a scout from the Dallas Cowboys, named Gerry Angelo, who called in March of that year and asked if I would meet him at Cameron Indoor Stadium to get tested in a variety of drills.

I agreed, and over the next hour Mr. Angelo put me through a variety of speed and agility drills.

We then went out on a brisk spring day and ran two 40-yard dashes on the wintry gray sod of Wallace Wade Stadium.

The Cowboys thought so highly of my performance that on the day after the 12-round draft ended they sent their equipment manager, Buck Buchanan, to try and sign me to a free agent contract.

In between a German final and some late night peanut and butter sandwiches, I signed a 3 year contract with the Dallas Cowboys that included a $1200 signing bonus.

That was the extent of my combine, pro day, off-season, and lead up to my 12-year NFL career.

There were 15 players drafted that year along with 106 signed free agents which added up to a rookie class that started with 121 rookies.

A grand total of six rookies made the team that year. And 12 years later I was the only rookie from that initial class that was still playing.

I offer this backdrop not to pat myself on my back but to contrast that with what the draft process has become.

I am not sure that the current process makes for finding players any better.

I attended my first NFL Combine this year in Indianapolis slog with much of who comprises the NFL. Recognizable head coaches, general managers, media members and future NFL players were scattered throughout a couple of downtown blocks in Indianapolis. It was a media circus.

I spent much of my three days down on artificial surface of Lucas Oil Stadium watching the more than 300 players run sprints and put through a variety gymnastics.

It was here that I saw the flaw of the entire process.

While the players spend months training for this event, the fact is, is that it is a mostly vestigial drill.

I don’t believe that the tests lead to finding good hard-working productive players.

In fact I think it clouds the minds of evaluators and coaches.

Football is unique and the only way to become a better right guard is to spend time playing right guard. In essence, nothing replaces the skill of playing your position, ideally, in real game situations.

There were 44 wide receivers invited to this years combine.
This after a great rookie class of receivers lead by the NFL’s offensive rookie of the year, Odell Beckham Jr.

The pressure was on to try and outperform the class of 2014.
Of the 44 receivers, 35 ran a faster 40 time than 4.59. I mention the time of 4.59 seconds because that is what Jerry Rice ran at his combine when he departed the titanic football power of Mississippi Valley State.

His 4.59 would have been a colossal disappointment in today’s metric world, and even the legendary coach, Bill Walsh, might have been persuaded not to use a first round pick on the game’s greatest receiver ever.

That would have been a shame.

When I was a game announcer for FOX, I did quite a few 49ers games and then a few Raiders games. There was NEVER a practice I attended where Jerry Rice wasn’t catching footballs from a ball boy, or even himself, when the quarterbacks weren’t throwing the ball to him in their famed West Coast Offense.

Nobody, and I emphasize, NOBODY, outworked Jerry Rice. That can’t be measured.

I had a lunch with former New York Giants head football coach, Ray Perkins, one afternoon in his hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

He was the head coach in 1981 when Big Blue had the second overall pick.
There was an outside linebacker that year from University of North Carolina named Lawrence Taylor, who was garnering oodles of national attention.

So much so that the lowly football Giants were thinking of using their selection on Taylor.

So Ray Perkins took a trip to Chapel Hill to visit with the prospect.

Taylor met Perkins in one of their film rooms in the football offices and watched five or six games together.

Perkins took a liking to Taylor. After the film study Taylor asked Perkins if it was time to go out onto the field and do drills and run. Perkins responded by saying, “No…that won’t be necessary. I have watched enough. If you are available when we pick No. 2 you will be our selection.”

Taylor won rookie of the year and the Giants turned their fortunes around on the evaluation of Ray Perkins.

Life was a lot different 34 years ago. It makes me wonder if we, collectively, with all of the technology and all of the advanced scouting and metric formulas have gotten any better at identifying the next LT or even the next Tom Brady.

It goes back to instincts and some general managers, like Ozzie Newsome, just can see the David lying in a block of Carrera Marble.

All of this leads us to where it always leads us when I write these columns…Chip Kelly.

He is the head coach and the general manager and for the first time since I have played for the Eagles as a player and as a broadcaster that I know with absolution just who is in charge of selecting the players in the 2015 draft.
Entering into his third year, and with a roster full of immediate needs, it is all on Chip to build this team with his own players.

It is pressure but to Chip I think he feels this is his divine right and has extreme confidence on improving this team from a 10-win, non-playoff team into one that will be in the NFL’s final four by mid-January 2016.

My advice to Chip is to trust your instincts throughout this process and don’t become paralyzed by over analysis.

Be bold! It has been at the bedrock of your ascendancy over the past decade.
In Chip we trust.