Pro Days and Private Workouts: The Rest of the Pre-Draft Process
The combine gets the headlines, but much of a draft prospect's evaluation happens on campus pro days, in team facilities and in rooms with no cameras. Here is how it works.
A college senior who is invited to the NFL Scouting Combine gets a few days in front of every team at once. A senior who is not invited, or who is invited and decides to run again, still has a chance to be measured, timed and watched. In fact, the weeks after the combine are where much of the real work of the pre-draft process takes place, and almost none of it is televised.
If you have ever wondered why a prospect "will work out at his pro day" or why a team "hosted him for a visit," this guide explains what those events are, who attends, what the rules allow, and how much weight the people making the decisions actually put on them. It also explains the limits, because a stopwatch on a spring morning tells you less than it seems to.
Where pro days fit in the draft calendar
The pre-draft process follows a rough order every year. The fall is for game film and area scouting: scouts visit campuses, watch practices where allowed and talk to coaches and staff. After the college season come the all-star games, which give a group of seniors a week of practice against each other. Then comes the combine, where the league gathers hundreds of prospects in one city for medical examinations, interviews, measurements and on-field drills. The draft itself, held in the spring, closes the process.
Pro days and private workouts sit between the combine and the draft. Their timing varies by school and by year, and the exact dates are set by each school and each team, so check the school's athletic department for specifics. What does not change is the purpose: after the combine, teams know what the standardized numbers say, and they use the next few weeks to fill in everything the numbers do not capture.
For a refresher on the standardized tests themselves, see our guide to the NFL Scouting Combine. For the event that follows all of this, see Inside the NFL Draft.
What a pro day is
A pro day is a workout held at a college, on the school's own campus and facilities, for the benefit of NFL scouts. The school invites the teams, the players on the roster who hope to be drafted take part, and scouts, position coaches and sometimes general managers and head coaches attend. It is the school's chance to showcase its seniors and a convenient way for teams to see many prospects in one stop.
A pro day is not a game and not a competition. It is a controlled set of tests, usually in an indoor practice facility or on the school's own field. Prospects are weighed and measured, then run through a set of drills that closely mirror the combine: the 40-yard dash, the bench press for repetitions, the vertical jump, the broad jump, and the shuttle and cone drills that test change of direction. After the testing, there is usually a period of position-specific work, where a quarterback throws to receivers, a defensive back works through backpedal and break drills, and a pass rusher works against a bag or a teammate.
Who takes part varies. At a typical pro day, the main attraction is the school's own senior class. Some schools also invite former players who are still hoping to land with a team, and some allow prospects from nearby schools without a pro day of their own. It is also common for a prospect who already performed at the combine to take part only in the drills he wants to do again, or only the position work.
Who benefits most from a pro day
For some players, the pro day is a chance to confirm what scouts already believe. For others, it is the main opportunity they get.
- Players who were not invited to the combine. The combine invites a limited number of prospects, so many draft hopefuls with real chances never get the national stage. A pro day gives them an organized, official-looking set of numbers that teams can put in a report.
- Players coming off injury. A prospect who could not complete drills at the combine, or who skipped them to recover, can return at the pro day to show he is healthy and still athletic.
- Players who want a second attempt. Someone who ran slowly or cramped at the combine may choose to run again in familiar surroundings.
- Quarterbacks. The pro day is especially important for quarterbacks, because the combine's drills for passers are limited. At a pro day a quarterback can throw a full script to receivers he knows, with routes he has run all season, and scouts get a closer look at footwork, release and accuracy.
None of this means the pro day is a better test than the combine. It simply means teams get a second look under different conditions.
Why pro day numbers get less trust than combine numbers
Experienced evaluators treat a pro day result differently from a combine result, and the reasons are mostly practical.
- Different surfaces. A 40-yard dash on a fast indoor track and a 40-yard dash on a worn practice field are not the same test. Surface type, grip and even the shoes a player wears can change a time.
- Different timing methods. At the combine, timing is done under one league-run system with the same equipment for everyone. At a pro day, who is holding the stopwatch, or whether electronic timing is used at all, depends on the school and the scouts present. Hand timing is generally faster than electronic timing, and different timers can disagree.
- A familiar environment. Players are comfortable on their home field, with their own coaches and trainers around them. That is helpful for performance, but it means the conditions are friendlier than a neutral site.
- Looser measurement of the course. A pro day has no league inspector checking that the distances are exact, so scouts often adjust or discount the numbers.
This is why a scout who writes "ran in the 4.4s at his pro day" will often add a note about the surface or the timing, and why a good front office compares pro day results with the combine and with the player's game film. When all three agree, the number is believable. When a pro day time looks far better than the player's film, evaluators get suspicious.
Private workouts and team visits
After pro days, teams narrow their focus. A private workout is a session arranged by a single team for a single prospect, or for a small group, either at the prospect's school or home area, or at the team's facility. A team visit brings the prospect to the team's building. Visits and workouts are where front offices put a prospect through the specific tests they care about most, and where the prospect meets the people who might draft him.
Private workouts are focused. A team that is thinking of drafting a quarterback might run him through its own installed passing concepts on a whiteboard, then ask him to throw them on the field. A team that wants a pass rusher might watch him work against its own offensive line coach's drills. The point is to see how the player handles instruction in that team's specific system and how quickly he picks up new information.
These are not all athletic exams. A visit is also a chance for staff to spend time with the player in a different setting than the combine's short interviews: meals, building tours, meetings with position coaches, and conversations with the general manager and head coach. Teams are trying to answer a simple question: would this person fit our locker room, and can he learn our system?
The cap on visits, and local prospects
League rules limit how many prospects a team can bring to its facility before the draft. The limit has been commonly described as 30 visits per team, and prospects who live or play in the team's local area have generally been treated separately and do not count against that total. The exact number and the rules around local prospects are set by the league, can change, and are best confirmed from league announcements rather than from memory.
The cap matters because it forces teams to make choices. A team with a few high picks and a long list of players it likes cannot bring everyone in. Visits tend to go to the players a team is seriously considering for its top selections, or to players where a particular question needs answering that a pro day could not resolve, such as a medical follow-up or a character concern. Teams can still scout widely through film, school pro days and combine interviews without spending a visit.
A visit by a given prospect is therefore a modest signal, not a promise. Teams use visits to rule players out as well as in, and some prospects visit teams that never draft them.
What happens in a pre-draft interview
Interviews are a major piece of the process, and they appear at several stages: formal interviews at the combine, conversations at pro days and in-depth sessions during visits. A typical interview might include a position coach quizzing a player on a play installed by the staff, a scout asking about his background, and a coach asking him to explain a defensive coverage on the board.
For football knowledge, teams often test a prospect with film. The staff plays a clip, stops it before the snap, and asks the player what he sees. Can he identify the coverage? Does he know where his help is? Can a quarterback say where the ball should go and why? Players who can explain what they were seeing and why they made a choice tend to impress evaluators more than those who can only describe the result.
Teams also want to understand the person. Staff members look for how a prospect talks about teammates, handles adversity and responds to criticism. They typically speak with people from the player's past, such as coaches and teachers, to learn how he handles work and treats others. None of this is as precise as a stopwatch, and good evaluators know it. They treat it as one input among many.
Medical re-checks and the other quiet work
The league's centralized medical process at the combine gives teams a broad look at a player's health history. After the combine, teams often want more detail on specific concerns, which is one of the main reasons for private visits. A team doctor may re-examine a past injury, and a player may be asked to repeat a physical test.
Teams also review the rest of what they know. Scouts look back at game film again and again. Analysts compare the player's numbers to others who played the same position. Position coaches may build a short list of the prospects they would want on their roster, and the general manager and head coach decide how to rank the whole group on a "draft board."
All of that happens quietly. A prospect's performance on a pro-day morning is one input, but it is usually weighted against hundreds of snaps of tape.
What matters, and what does not
It is tempting to treat every number as destiny. Football people know better. The sport asks for more than speed and strength: reading a defense, absorbing a playbook, finishing a block and playing through pain are not measured by a stopwatch. Measurements and drills are most useful at the edges: a player who tests dramatically better than his film suggests may be worth a second look, and a player whose film is excellent but whose testing is merely average may be a safer pick than the numbers imply.
Some positions rely more on workouts than others. Quarterbacks are judged by their throwing, but also by decisions on film and interviews. Offensive linemen are judged by length, balance and hand use as much as speed. Kickers and punters often get their own private workouts, because their skills are narrow and their results in a controlled setting are directly relevant.
The honest summary is that testing and workouts confirm or challenge film evaluation. They rarely replace it.
How to follow the process as a fan
If you want to follow the pre-draft process without being fooled by noise, a few habits help.
- Treat reported numbers with some skepticism. Unofficial times, hand-held stopwatch readings and social media clips can be misleading. Look for whether a number came from an official or electronic source.
- Note the context. A fast time on a fast track is not the same as a fast time on a slow field.
- Look at the whole picture. A prospect's film, size, age, injury history and production usually say more than any single drill.
- Be wary of rumors about visits. A report that a team hosted a prospect does not mean the team plans to draft him.
- Follow the schedule on official sources. Dates and rules can change, and the league and the schools announce them.
You can follow projected draft positions and team needs on our draft page, check the college hub to see which programs your favorite team's scouts might visit, and view team pages for the rosters the new class would join. If you are a player thinking about your own path, our guide to combine preparation for college prospects walks through how athletes train for these exact tests.
The short version
- A pro day is a school-run workout where NFL scouts watch the school's draft hopefuls do combine-style drills and position work.
- Pro day numbers are treated more cautiously than combine numbers because surfaces, timing methods and conditions vary.
- Private workouts and team visits let one team test a prospect on its own terms, meet him and check specific concerns.
- Teams have a limit on how many prospects they can bring to their facilities, with local prospects treated separately; confirm the current numbers in league announcements.
- Interviews and film sessions measure football knowledge and character, which a stopwatch cannot.
- No workout replaces game film; the best evaluations compare film, testing and background.