The Burning Questions Top Draft Prospects Seek to Answer at the 2026 NFL Combine ...Middle East

This year’s somewhat-muted NFL Draft talk is about to raise the noise. Particularly, that is, due to top prospects having questions to answer at the 2026 NFL Combine.

More than 300 very good college football players are set to descend on the 2026 NFL Combine in Indianapolis to try to convince teams they’ll be very good at the next level, too.

It’s been a somewhat quiet run-up to this year’s NFL Draft, probably because the 2026 class is light on high-end quarterback prospects. But the news cycle is about to get very hot, with the scouting combine – set for Lucas Oil Stadium from Feb. 23-March 2 – heating up the talk for the April 23-25 draft in Pittsburgh.

The on-field workouts draw the most attention for football fans, but the NFL prospects also go through measurements and medical examinations, psychological testing, and team interviews.

NFL Combine On-Field Workouts (NFL Network)

Following are some of the top prospects who face varying degrees of burning questions as they head to the NFL Combine.

Quarterback

Will Fernando Mendoza’s plane land in Indianapolis without incident?

That’s just about it for Mendoza, the top quarterback in the class.

The Las Vegas Raiders are very likely to select him No. 1 overall in the draft, and Mendoza, knowing this, will follow in the tradition of recent top QB prospects and not participate in on-field drills.

As long as Indiana’s Heisman Trophy winner and national championship-winning QB interviews well and leaves new coach Klint Kubiak with the impression that he’ll be a good student, everything should be standard here.

Just to be safe, Mendoza should also avoid giving the Raiders the impression he has any hobbies outside of football.

Running Back

Will anybody turn in an amazing workout to solidify himself as RB2?

The first running back selection will be Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love, and he’s probably the only player at the position who will go in the first round.

Based on the current NFL Mock Draft Database’s consensus big board, you could even imagine a circumstance in which there’s not another running back taken until the third round.

But someone will probably separate himself from the rest of the draft class’s non-Love running backs, and Indy will be a good stage for that player to do it.

Some specific questions that are burning for answers:

How will Jadarian Price look in offensive drills?

Love’s backup at Notre Dame did not average more than 10 touches per game in any of his three college seasons. That’s life when a running back shares a depth chart with Love.

The lack of usage might not hurt Price at all, though, and could even do the opposite as he’ll bring unusually fresh legs into the NFL for a top running back prospect.

I think NFL teams will be interested in how Price looks in a completely sterile football environment, where he’s not just spelling Love and has the chance to put his own measurables on display.

How will Jaydn Ott’s physical testing go?

Ott had one of the weirdest college careers ever.

He was an immediate star as a true freshman at Cal in 2022, then upped his game again in 2023. Injuries wrecked his 2024 season, but Ott looked primed for a huge 2025, when Oklahoma agreed and made a sizable NIL investment to bring Ott from Berkeley to Norman. But he got all of 23 offensive touches in his last college season as the Sooners coaching staff never took to him and preferred other tailbacks with much less of a track record.

NFL teams will want to know what happened at Oklahoma. I’m not certain Ott has been at his physical best ever since 2023, when he looked like he could jump out of a stadium.

It’s possible there’s a mid-round heist on offer here, but the bizarre shape of Ott’s college career will be hard for some teams to swallow.

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Pass Catcher

Is Jordyn Tyson healthy?

Tyson was a stud for Arizona State in 2024, serving as a one-man downfield passing attack that opposing defenses could not solve. The problem is serious injuries have bookended that production.

Tyson tore his ACL, MCL and PCL as a freshman at Colorado in 2022 and missed the entire 2023 season before transferring to Arizona State after Deion Sanders took over in Boulder. He then missed the Sun Devils’ College Football Playoff run in 2024 with a collarbone injury, and hurt his hamstring and was limited to nine games this past season.

Tyson is this draft’s most clear-cut injury question, in my opinion. He’s either going to be great in the NFL or be hurt a lot.

How fast is Carnell Tate?

Tate is an awesome wide receiver prospect whose overall skills package is not in doubt. He’s a smooth route-runner, a long 6-foot-3, and comfortable shifting back and forth between a huge target share and a lighter workload. (He had to be at Ohio State in sharing a wideout room with Jeremiah Smith and 2025 first-round draft pick Emeka Egbuka.)

Tate could solidify himself as the best receiver prospect in the draft if he shows up in Indianapolis and blows people away in the 40-yard dash. I’m not sure if he will participate in the bench press, but teams might also be keen to get a sense of his body’s physical thickness.

Offensive Line

How big is Kadyn Proctor?

A three-year starter for Alabama, Proctor was a fun player for the Tide, even getting the ball in short yardage five times last season. He probably will not carry his ’Bama body into the NFL, though.

Alabama once listed the 6-foot-7 Proctor at 369 pounds, and he played at a listed 360 last season – well out of step with the weight of a starting NFL tackle or guard, who would normally be much closer to 300. In fact, nobody checked in at north of 342 pounds at last year’s NFL Combine, and only one 335-pounder or heavier (Green Bay Packers OT Anthony Belton) went in the first two rounds.

Proctor will be something of an outlier whether he plays tackle or guard in the NFL. But as a potential first-round pick, the most notable aspect of Proctor’s Combine performance will come when he steps onto a scale.

Assuming he’s trimmed down a bit, he could look really good in agility drills.

Defensive Line

Can Rueben Bain Jr. overcome his short arms?

I am a college football evaluator, so I’d draft Bain with a top-five pick and not think twice about it, regardless of what he does on the pre-draft circuit (like some other prospects, he bypassed an invite to the Senior Bowl).

Bain is an outrageous player, and his 74 pressures at national runner-up Miami (FL) last season – many of them in huge games against future NFL competition – speak for themselves. But the NFL likes what it likes, and many decision-makers prefer longer arms from premier pass-rush prospects.

Bain’s arms have reportedly been measured at just under 31 inches, well on the shorter side of top-end rushers. (For reference, Myles Garrett’s arms measured at 35 inches, TJ Watt’s at 33, and Nik Bonnito’s at 32.)

First, the NFL Combine will confirm the actual length of Bain’s arms. Second, it’ll give teams a chance to decide based on his additional workout and physical data whether they’re comfortable with that.

Linebacker

How will CJ Allen’s short-area quickness stack up?

Allen was a tremendous middle linebacker for Georgia, arguably the best player on a 2025 defense that lacked the star power of some of the elite program’s recent units.

Allen was a consensus All-American and won’t turn 21 until March 1. Generally speaking, that would be enough to make a player a first-round linebacker.

Right now, most big boards have Allen right on the border of that status, with questions about his lateral quickness and athleticism permeating the scouting reports on him. Compounding that issue, he tore meniscus in the middle of this past season, though he only missed one game.

Nobody will question whether Allen is a gamer, but his medical testing and three-cone and shuttle drill results will have a lot of eyeballs on them.

Secondary

What is there for Caleb Downs to even do at the NFL Combine?

Downs is one of the more-hyped safety prospects ever to come into the NFL. The chances he’s not the first safety selected in the draft are zero, and a number of people around college football feel strongly the two-time first-team All-American from Ohio State is the best overall prospect.

To the extent Downs wants to do an on-field workout, he’ll probably crush it. But more than any prospect I can remember, the question of when Downs will be drafted rests entirely on another question: How early is the earliest that an NFL team will feel comfortable drafting a safety?

Eric Turner went No. 2 overall to the Cleveland Browns in 1991, but in this millennium, only two players (Sean Taylor in 2004 and Eric Berry in 2010) have touched the No. 5 overall spot.

Downs is like Mendoza in that this year’s NFL Combine is mainly a chance for him to be so charming, personable and knowledgeable in interviews that he goes at No. 4 instead of No. 9.

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The Burning Questions Top Draft Prospects Seek to Answer at the 2026 NFL Combine Opta Analyst.

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