Five Players and Storylines to Follow During the NFL Scouting Combine
Next week, the eyes of the NFL and fantasy football world descend on Indianapolis for the annual NFL Scouting Combine. It’s there, on the field of Lucas Oil Stadium, where two months of non-stop discourse about this rookie class truly begins. Whose stock is rising and falling? Will the teams at the top take a quarterback or trade out? Who will be the sleepers and values in dynasty rookie drafts? All of that and more starts to flush itself out at the Combine. Here are five players and storylines to keep a close eye on next week to help prepare you for your dynasty rookie drafts and trades.
Travis Hunter: Cornerback, Wide Receiver or Both?
Hunter is coming off an incredible college career where he played both wide receiver and cornerback for the Colorado Buffaloes. He won the Heisman Trophy last season, catching 96 balls for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns and dominating on the defensive side of the football. He’s won the Fred Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s best receiver and the Chuck Bednarik Award as the nation’s top defensive player. He is a slam dunk NFL prospect, but is he worth a draft pick in dynasty fantasy football?
Hunter is officially listed as a defensive back for the NFL Combine. That means he’ll test, interview and do medicals with the defensive backs. That doesn’t mean he won’t also do drills with the wide receivers on the field. In fact, I assume he will take part in the wide receiver drills, though that has yet to be announced. Hunter insists he wants to continue to be a full-time, two-way player in the NFL. If he wants to do that, he’s going to have to show NFL scouts and general managers what he can do running routes in those drills.
Hunter’s dynasty value is a massive question mark going into the combine. If you take a look at the DLF Rookie Rankings, his rankings range from 6th overall to 39th. It depends entirely on how an NFL team is going to use him. Will Hunter be a full-time cornerback who plays occasionally on offense? Or will he be a featured piece on the offensive side of the ball? The Combine will be the first chance Hunter gets to talk to teams one-on-one in the interview process. It’s there that they’ll discuss intentions for his usage. So pay attention to leaks from those interviews and what teams are saying after talking to him. Hunter is probably the most talented wide receiver in this draft class and could easily be a top rookie draft pick, but if he is only a gadget player on offense, then he’ll fall into the back half of rookie drafts.
Will the Quarterbacks Throw?
Going into the NFL Combine, the pecking order at the top of the quarterback board seems to be set in stone. Cam Ward has been universally mocked as the first quarterback to be drafted, followed by Shedeur Sanders. But, there is still so much that can happen between now and the first round of the NFL Draft. The first stop is Indianapolis, where these players will get to talk to NFL teams, test, and potentially throw in front of league scouts. You can guarantee that in the next couple of weeks, the winds will turn towards Sanders as the top of the class. There will be rumors about teams obsessed with Jaxson Dart or Jalen Milroe as sleepers to go first. Right now, Ward seems locked in, but a lot can change.
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Ward and Sanders threw together in Dallas during the East-West Shrine Bowl activities, but it wasn’t as official and structured as the NFL Combine will be. Neither of them have confirmed they will throw in Indy, and they could probably argue that it’s better for them not to throw and wait for pro days to show what they’ve got. But, selfishly as fantasy managers, we want to see them take the ball under the Combine spotlight and up against their peers in the draft.
Whether Ward or Sanders throw, the other quarterbacks will be interesting to watch as well. Dart and Milroe are both hoping to earn a first-round pick in the draft, and throwing at the Combine will be very important, especially if Ward and Sanders don’t take the ball. Someone will grab headlines based on their performance in Indy, and they’re hoping that they can steal the spotlight away from the top players at the position. Quinn Ewers is another name to keep an eye on who could compete for the third quarterback off the board.
Which Wide Receiver Will Emerge?
The narrative about the 2025 NFL Draft Class is that the wide receivers don’t come close to living up to the classes of previous years. We’ve been spoiled by some elite classes this year, but this one just doesn’t have the upside, especially if Travis Hunter enters the professional ranks as a full-time cornerback and part-time receiver. That means, the door is wide open for anyone to shoot up the draft board over the next couple of weeks, starting at the NFL Combine.
Right now, there is a pretty clear top three for dynasty purposes between Tetairoa McMillan, Luther Burden and Emeka Egbuka. McMillan is the consensus number one right now according to the DLF Rookie Rankings, and it’s unlikely he’ll lose that spot at the Combine. He seems to be the lone player in this draft that has the upside to be a franchise wide receiver. He’s huge at 6’5” and 215 lbs but still has the speed and route-running ability to get open at the NFL level.
After that top three, there’s plenty of room for movement. Everyone has red flags that will need to be addressed and that will start at the Combine. I am looking forward to seeing the Texas wide receivers, Isaiah Bond and Mathtew Golden, to see if there is any separation there between those two former teammates. Jack Bech and Jaylin Noel dominated the Senior Bowl, a great Combine could really push them up into the day two discussion.
Can Harold Fannin Jr Play Tight End?
If you haven’t heard of Fannin Jr., you will after the NFL Combine. He was a dominant force in the receiving game last season, catching 117 passes for 1,555 yards (both numbers led all of FBS Division 1) and 10 touchdowns in 13 games. You have to take all of that with a grain of salt though, he played for Bowling Green in the lowly MAC conference.
While he’s a dominant pass-catcher, there are some concerns about his ability to play tight end. At only 230 lbs., he has more of a wide receiver’s build than a tight end’s. None of the tight ends at last year’s Combine weighed in at 230 lbs. or fewer. Meanwhile, Johnny Wilson was the only “wide receiver” to weigh in at over 230 lbs. So Fannin is a bit of a ‘tweener, and it shows up in the blocking game. Pro Football Focus graded his run blocking at a 75.2 last year, a big improvement over his previous two seasons, but he’ll need to step it up to block NFL-size pass-rushers if he is ever going to play in-line. He also ran a limited route tree, focusing mostly on designed touches and screen passes.
This looks like it could be an elite class of fantasy tight ends, and Fannin could be one of the best of the group. At the NFL Combine, teams will be watching him closely to see how he measures up, literally and on the field, against his fellow tight ends in this class.
Running Back Speed Scores
When it comes to the running back position, there isn’t a ton to be learned at the NFL Combine. Backs tend to be judged much more from their tape than their measurables. One thing they will do is run routes in the passing game, which is a skill worth watching. Some running backs are barely ever asked to catch the ball in college, so we’ll need to see if that skill can translate to the pros.
The one metric that is extremely important for running backs is the speed scores. Speed score is a metric that compares the size of a player vs. their speed. Looking back at last year’s running back class, two players who flashed for fantasy football despite low draft capital were Isaac Guerendo and Tyrone Tracy. They both had speed scores over 100 last year. In fact, Isaac Guerendo had the highest speed score in the class at 125.74. There aren’t many metrics that can correlate with NFL success, but this one probably comes the closest. With that being said, Bucky Irving was the breakout star of last year’s running back class, despite his abysmal 89.6 speed score.
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