**
Area scout Todd Brunner continues his blog with updates from Indianapolis, site of the 2007 Scouting Combine. Find out what Brunner and the rest of the 49ers scouts are up to in Indy...**
Thursday - So we wrapped up our draft meetings on Sunday and I flew home to New Jersey. I got my hair cut which was very important, and pretty much hung out with my kids, enjoying the two days at home that I had with them.
Since they were off of school, I took them bowling which is something they love to do, and then headed out for Indy. I caught the last flight out of Philly, but landed about an hour late on Tuesday night…and they lost my bags, or I should say my bag didn't make the flight. It was a straight shot from Philly, but somehow it didn't make it.
On Wednesday morning, wearing the same clothes as I had left home in, I went to meetings with Scot McCloughan and Ethan Waugh to hear reports read on all of the juniors who just declared for the draft. It helps for me to just make sure there isn't any background information on any of the kids from my area that somehow I may have overlooked.
The players started coming in that afternoon and then the rest of the scouts and some of our coaches arrived last night. We all went to dinner at Champs which is right down the street and a less than five minute walk.
This morning was really the first of the Combine activities with the first of three groups weighing in at 7:30 this morning. The punters, kickers, offensive linemen and tight ends all came in for their height and weight session.
We'll obviously all get the data printed out and we'll compare those to what we have on file, but just seeing the guys and judging their physique is important in this process. Some offensive linemen might have a shorter arm length than you thought, and that can be a hindrance because they are trying to keep defensive linemen off them and in this league that's tough to do. Longer arm o-linemen typically fare better. The same can be said of tight ends when it comes to run blocking. You'd like for your tight ends to have a nice arm length.
My Delaware tight end Ben Patrick who I'm always pushing looked good. He's well built and very well proportioned. He could very well end up being a big fullback or a good sized tight end.
We had some time this afternoon after the last of the measurements, and so I grabbed lunch with Coach Rodgers and Ethan Waugh over at the food court in the mall. We ran into a lot of people who we knew so it gave us a chance to catch up quickly.
The Combine is different than the Senior Bowl because although the majority of scouts and coaches come down, everyone comes to Indianapolis. I even ran into an ex-Eagles player who was with the club when I was working there, William Thomas. He used to play linebacker for us, and I think he's looking to get back into the league in a front office capacity.
Tonight, a lot of coaches are interviewing players we assigned to them, which is in addition to the 60 players we have coming in through our interview room. They allow you to request a list of 60 and then you get fifteen minutes with those players. Scot McCloughan, Coach Nolan and usually the coordinators sit in on those. At this point, most of the area scouts have already talked to these guys, but if there's additional info that we need, we can go interview whatever players we need in a separate room every evening. They allow you ten minutes over there, and it's less informal but they do want to make sure one team is not monopolizing a guy.
The first couple of days of the Combine are actually slow days, but once the workouts start which is tomorrow for the kickers it really starts to pick up. Saturday is the busiest day with players running the 40s.
We'll have the first set of bench press tomorrow with the offensive line and then another group will arrive and we'll start over with the height/weight.
Until then –
Todd Brunner
