Offtackle

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First and Ten: What to Carry Out of Indianapolis as the Combine Wraps Up

Caleb Banks. Dillon Thieneman. Three hundred young men who traveled to Indiana and earned the right to play the games you'll watch this fall.

The combine wrapped up Sunday in Indianapolis, and here is what I want you to carry out of it with you.

I want you to remember that a defensive tackle from Florida jumped so explosively off the snap on Thursday that three of the scouts standing nearby made the same involuntary noise at the same time. I heard it. I was standing close enough to see their clipboards shake. That's Caleb Banks, and he is going to play on Sundays for a long time and he is going to be very good at it.

I want you to remember a safety from Oregon named Dillon Thieneman, who in the background of everyone talking about the quarterbacks and the edge rushers quietly ran every drill this week like he had been waiting his whole life for someone to actually watch him. Thieneman is going to be a first-round pick and five years from now you are going to watch him make a play in the fourth quarter of an important game and you are going to remember exactly where you heard his name first.

I want you to remember that the offensive line group at this combine is the deepest it has been in several years, and I know that sounds like something only very committed football people care about, but here is why it matters to you: when offensive linemen are good, quarterbacks stay healthy, and when quarterbacks stay healthy, the game is better. Every great offensive lineman who gets drafted this April is a direct investment in the games you're going to watch over the next decade being more fun.

The combine is a strange event when you think about it. Three hundred young men travel to Indianapolis and run and jump and lift and get measured in ways that will determine the trajectory of their professional lives. The numbers are real and the stakes are real and the pressure is enormous. Most of them handle it with more grace than anyone has a right to expect.

These are the players who are going to play the games that make you forget what you were worrying about on a Sunday afternoon. They earned the right to do that this week.

Football in the fall is going to be good. It always is.

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