One thing's already for sure - This year there will be a flood of draft info coming at us from all directions:
- NFL Net is already hyping the Combine.
- Broadband technology facilitates streaming (see ASFN sticky thread) of video clips for key prospects
- Last year, both ESPN and NFL Network were all over Super Bowl practices and figure to only do it even more thoroughly this season. (It's one thing to read what Kiper says about a guy, but far better to actually see what he can do in drills).
- There figures to be an avalanche of new draft blogs (with a few of them even being really good - the trick will be to separate the good from the bad)
A couple of words of caution -
Combine and some of the Senior Bowl drills only give you a picture of what an athlete can do physically. What they can't readily reveal is a players heart, love for the game and willingness to hit and be hit.
Unless you see game footage, you'll miss out on such stuff as Edge's ability to run low to the ground for extra yardage or Urlacher's nose for the ball or how quickly or aggressively a CB does or doesn't break on the ball.
And if you only see highlight footage, you'll only see the good things - you won't know how consistent a player is in catching the ball, not putting it on the ground, tackling one on one and all that good stuff.
My point - More information is better than less information, but it's important to know how to use it and not be overly influenced by one single thing you see or hear about a prospect.
In the end, the best we (including each team) can come up with is the percentage likelihood of how a prospect will perform in the NFL in various aspects of the game. The entire process is designed to add as much certainty to the process as possible, but it's far from fool proof. The best anyone can do is "play the odds."