Weird spectacle of the NFL’s ‘Underwear Olympics’ wraps up

They didn’t work out in underwear and you didn’t see photos of them being weighed shirtless (thanks to one memorable photo of Tom Brady), but the latest version of the NFL’s annual flesh fest wrapped up this weekend.

Officially called the NFL Combine, unofficially the Underwear Olympics, the weeklong event in Indianapolis showcased college football players who hope to be drafted this spring.

It’s an oddly homoerotic event: Young, very fit men running, jumping, bench pressing, and being weighed and measured, all while dressed in tight compression gear under the watchful eyes of (almost exclusively) male scouts, NFL coaches and executives and media. The NFL Network devoted hours a day this past week and I’ve always found it odd why people would watch what amounts to guys doing drills.

As one critic wrote in 2020:

Never is that contrast more apparent than during weigh-in night. Players in their underwear are paraded on stage in front of a room full of executives, scouts, and coaches, like some kind of pre-fight marketing venture. Agents take pride – pride – in preparing their clients for that first moment when they enter the Indianapolis ballroom. When scouts shuffle in their seats and audibly gasp. He didn’t look like the last time I was on campus. It is demeaning to everyone involved. Guardian

Yet it’s become a huge event on the NFL calendar, with reams of words being written about whose stock rose or who fell and what it means for draft position. And it’s great if you’re a fan of compression gear.

Not everyone sees value in the event.

“I guess there is somewhat of a spectacle,” Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell said last year. “To me it’s more, at this point, just to be able to sit with these guys. They get the medical during the week, but for us to be able to do these interviews is to me the biggest part of all this. It’s not even the working out portion. To me, you grade them off the tape, you don’t grade off somebody out here in pajamas, running the 40 with no defender around.”

The league has made some strides in making it a less-weird event, including fines if teams ask inappropriate questions, such as does a player like men; or questions about someone’s mom.

“These student-athletes should be celebrated, not humiliated,” Troy Vincent, the league’s executive vice president of football operations and a former five-time Pro Bowl cornerback, said in 2022.

Yet there are still odd scenes, like this one of a player being measured while holding a wooden dowel underneath their rear with a scout staring intently:

Or this one where it looks like his hair is being measured:

Or this one designed to measure I have no idea what:

The combine is the perfect example of the NFL making something out of nothing, drawing attention to the sport when it’s in its long offseason. Despite its weirdness and questionable relevance to how a player will perform in the league, don’t expect the combine to change.

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