Colin Kaepernick is currently on a tour to promote his memoir, The Perilous Fight. The former quarterback is back under the spotlight after an unceremonious exit from the game and a battle with the NFL. Years later, Kaepernick is shedding light over the harsher realities of the league’s draft evaluations.
“When you get to the point that it’s like, ‘strip down to your drawers,’ it’s like, well, ‘Why do I need to do this?'” Kaepernick said on The Pivot podcast. “But also, I mean, I guess this is what I have to do, and everybody’s doing it like, all right, this is part of the process.
“Now, at that point in time, there are conversations with players at a high level of, like, you know, ‘Why do we have to do that?’ You have a high-level sense of, like, you know, ‘It feels like it’s a meat market.'”
Before the 1980s, teams individually conducted their tests on players. In 1982, the first national invitational camp was held so teams could examine prospects and collect their medical information more efficiently.
Scouts and teams already do a lot of homework on prospects by observing them during the college football season. The Combine is really where players get the first one-on-ones with the coaching staff. Teams meet with players during interviews, where they thoroughly assess the candidate.
However, Kaepernick, in an interview with The New Yorker, spoke about how players are labelled as “undraftable,” “rebellious,” “not coachable,” and others.
A reputation like that can hurt players big time, as it did to Shedeur Sanders in 2025. People had expected him to fall in the draft, but not as low as the fifth round. After the Combine and interviews with teams, multiple reports cited team sources describing Sanders as “brash and arrogant,” “unprofessional and disinterested,” and someone who “hit the wrong notes.”
“I feel like nothing can faze me mentally, because I’ve been in the most high-pressure situation that there is to be known,” Shedeur said during the NFL Combine. “That’s the edge I have over any other player, because they haven’t dealt with expectation immediately.”
Tom Brady is yet another example. Sure, coming out of Michigan, the former quarterback found it difficult to stand out among other QB candidates in the 2000 draft. His combine photo, which made him appear as an unfit QB, remains popular even today. Though Brady treats it as a joke (Josh Allen once showed him a golf ball with that photo printed, and the two shared some laughs), it did tank his draft, with the Patriots finally selecting him with the 199th pick.
All the detractors would be proved wrong years later, with Brady winning seven Super Bowl victories. In 2017, ahead of the Combine, the legendary quarterback used his own experience to motivate the class.
“I found my combine shirt from 17 years ago and it got me thinking,” he shared on Instagram. “This is what they said about me then….. Poor build, Skinny, Lacks great physical stature and strength, Lacks mobility and ability to avoid the rush, Lacks a really strong arm, Can’t drive the ball downfield, Does not throw a really tight spiral, System-type player who can get exposed if forced to ad lib, Gets knocked down easily.
“As [Julian Edelmann] always reminds me … You can prove em right or you can prove em wrong!’ Good luck to all of you this weekend!!”
This year, too, there were some draft surprises. One of them was former LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier slipped all the way to the sixth round when the Kansas City Chiefs picked him up. His draft stock took a hit because of his injury-marred 2025 campaign, but he was the leading passer in the country in the 2024 season.
Nussmeier had impressed people in the Senior Bowl and LSU Pro Day, but he still fell that low. Penn State quarterback Drew Allar, who was also injured in 2025, was drafted ahead of him.
However, one thing is clear: scouting reports are never the final picture of any player. They have been corrected by multiple players like Brady, who went on to have rewarding careers in the NFL.