RELATED: See the 2025 NFL Combine Schedule of Events and List of Invitees

My buddy and I are convinced that the NBA Summer League is some of the best basketball to watch. Most of the time, you get to see the top picks play their first NBA minutes, and that’s cool, but that isn’t even the thing that makes it great. We like that, I don’t know, maybe 80 or 90 percent of the guys playing in those summer league games are playing simply to get a shot at the big leagues - and that means they are playing their rear ends off. Those games feature guys playing as hard as anyone will play at any level all year.

The NFL Combine has always been similar for me. Now, I have spent unusual amounts of time with things like the NFL Combine and NFL Draft over the years. I admit I'm a little bit of an addict when it comes to the NFL. Of course, if you're reading this right now, as February rolls into March, you probably are, too. So what is it that makes the "Underwear Olympics" so compelling to us, my fellow degenerates? 

Well, I think it's the same thing that makes those mid-summer hoops games so good. People are fighting for jobs, and this is the last, best chance for some of them to show that they belong. It might be drills on the field, it might be questions in the media scrums, or it might be Xs and Os with coaching staffs in meeting rooms, but everyone who shows up to Indy this week to put themselves out there for NFL teams has one thing in common: a desire to put their best foot forward and their other foot in the door of an NFL franchise.

The other thing about the NFL Combine? It comes along right as the information vacuum is starting to heat up in the fantasy football offseason. The Super Bowl is done. Coaching and front office vacancies have been filled. Only the most twisted among us have begun drafting for 2025 - looking at you, Bob Harris - but the combine means rookie drafts are right around the corner. This weekend in Indianapolis is our first chance to see many of these players since their NCAA seasons ended.

There are many different ways to evaluate rookies for what kind of fantasy potential they could have as pros. I think the best methods consider some combination of college production, measurables, and draft capital. 

Now, no matter the position, draft capital is the category I weigh the most. It isn't that NFL teams can't be wrong - they often are - but that when a team makes a draft pick, it is the one time in the whole process that they can't lie to us. The investment they make in a player speaks volumes, no matter how loudly they've said anything else. 

Unfortunately, they can't be forced to tell us that truth until April.

Until then, all we can do is fill in college production as soon as the season ends and wait for those fading days of February for the NFL Combine to present our first opportunity to get at least some of the measurables.

So, like just about every year for the last too-many-to-count, I'll be watching this weekend with more interest than, frankly, is probably healthy. Here are a few things I'm looking for as we head into the 2025 NFL Combine.

Bulls on Parade: Running Backs

Barring something unforeseen, Ashton Jeanty is primed to be the first running back off the board in April and probably in your rookie drafts. At this point in the process, he appears to be the first tier of the 2025 running back class all by himself.

Who will be in the second tier?

This is setting up to be a fairly deep class of running backs, and the order in which they go off the board in rookie drafts could depend a lot on personal preferences. If you take Jeanty out of the equation and consider just college production, there isn't much separating the next 7 or 8 players. 

I don't believe that a player's 40-time is as important as the attention it often receives, but it is a box I like to see checked by incoming running backs. I don't need everyone to be a burner. I just want to see a time somewhere in the 4.50-4.60 range at worst. In general, if a player runs in that range and weighs in around the 200-pound mark, he'll stay in that second tier of players after Jeanty, pending draft capital and landing spot in April. Too much slower or too much lighter, and he is a good candidate to slip to the third tier of running backs.

The players I consider to be in this group right now include Treveyon Henderson, Omarion Hampton, Devin Neal, Quinshon Judkins, Ollie Gordon II, DJ Giddens, RJ Harvey, LeQuint Allen, Damien Martinez, and Kaleb Johnson. A portion of this group is likely to make up the second tier of running backs for 2025, but some will slip to tier three. The NFL Combine and the pro days that will follow should give us the next bit of information we need to start differentiating these guys further.

Top Heavy: Wide Receivers

Ok, maybe top-heavy is a little unfair. I mean it more as a compliment, though. With only college production as a guide, I currently have four wide receivers - Tetairoa McMillan, Jalen Royals, Luther Burden, and Tre Harris - together in the top tier. They won't all stay there. I suspect, whether through the NFL Combine, the NFL Draft, or both, Royals and Harris will settle in a tier below McMillan and Burden. Heading into the Combine, though, all four of these players have dominator ratings over 30 percent and breakout ages of 20 years old or younger. Just on paper, there isn't a lot that separates them.

Jayden Higgins, Jaylin Noel, Pat Bryant, and Emeka Egbuka make up the next group of wide receivers in my pre-combine second tier. Higgins, Noel, and Bryant came up just short of the first tier in college production, while Egbuka just missed the cut with a sub-30 percent dominator rating - possibly a function of playing in loaded wide receiver rooms in college.

Similar to running backs, any wide receiver who runs a 40 slower than 4.60 at the NFL Combine will likely slide into the second tier, pending the NFL Draft. Likewise, while we've seen skinny receivers do well in the NFL over the past few years, my ideal top-tier wide receiver won't be much smaller than 5-foot-10 and about 185 pounds when they measure in Indianapolis. So, I'll spend the weekend watching the wide receivers for a combination of speed and size that will help me separate these two tiers. The receivers I really like are the ones who check in with that Ja'Marr Chase build, around 6-foot-0 and 200 pounds.

I expect McMillan and Burden to emerge from the NFL Combine as my top tier at wide receiver. How the others test and measure will determine whether anyone else joins them there or whether the position will remain top-heavy with a large second tier heading into the NFL Draft.

The Leftovers: Quarterbacks and Tight Ends

I feel like we get less and less from the NFL Combine concerning quarterbacks every year. I believe that a lot of the best quarterback evaluation goes on behind closed doors, on the whiteboards, with coaches and players taking each other through Xs and Os. The on-field stuff is a spectacle, for sure, but it doesn't move the needle much for me from a fantasy analysis perspective. Draft capital is more important to me than anything else when it comes to quarterbacks more than any other position. If a quarterback is taken in the first round of the NFL Draft, I will consider him in my top tier. If not, he can't get any higher than tier two. As we sit here in February, most mock drafts have Shedeur Sanders and Cameron Ward as first-round picks in April. Grinding the Mocks currently shows Jaxson Dart with an expected draft position just outside of the first round at number 37. I'll be watching Dart closely to see if he can entice a team to come up and get him in the first round.

Similar to quarterbacks, I have narrowed down my evaluation of tight ends to basically two things. I want a tight end who is going to be one of the top two options on his offense and has athleticism oozing out of his pores. In that regard, I'll be watching tight end drills to see how players like Harold Fannin Jr. and Colston Loveland test and whether either could challenge Tyler Warren for the number one tight end on my board come April.

Settle in and enjoy the weekend, my fellow draft addicts. The NFL Combine has become a bit of a spectacle for many these days, but for a lot of the players in Indianapolis this weekend it's the beginning of their last chance to chase the dream.

For more insight into the 2025 NFL Combine, check out Footballguys Jeff Bell and Dave Kluge as they discuss 12 Rookies You Need to Know Before the NFL Combine.