I found
this article on the NFL combine in the Desert News the other day. It is interesting for me personally on two fronts: 1, I took a few classes from Mikaela Durfur back at BYU and helped her with some project, and I respect her research skills and insights immensely. 2, I grew up in a NFL scouting family, and hearing that I was watching the combine last year, my grandpa (a retired scout) laughed at me and told me that no scout worth his salt could ever learn anything from the combine that he didn't already know. Now, grandpa was a QB scout, and I just figured it was position specific (seriously, how much do you learn about a quarterback at the combine that really helps you? Watching him lock on and throw to a single, wide-open receiver in a non-contact setting doesn't do much). Reading this article, and now that I have had a chance to read the actual study, it's pretty enlightening as to how little the combine affects scouting, and how much the players' union dislikes it.
Just a note, some people got all up in arms about a player likening the combine to a slave market. Realize this was a statement about the invasive, sometimes humiliating process so that rich white men can decide who they want to purchase rather than a denial of free will.
Here's another article that tells a little about what goes on at the combine that isn't broadcast
