While no scouts or executives have come out and said it, there is supposedly a belief among NFL teams that Alabama players have more wear and tear on their bodies than prospects from other schools. You can guess how Nick Saban feels about that perception.
In an interview with Brock and Salk on 710 ESPN in Seattle this week, Saban said he has never heard anyone outside the media claiming his players are worn down.
“When you talk to NFL teams, none of them ever say that to me. I don’t know where that came from,” he said, as transcribed by Chase Goodbread of NFL.com. “Eddie Lacy comes out and is rookie of the year as a running back. Where’s the wear and tear? We had 45 guys on NFL rosters last year, which is more than any other college team, so where’s the wear and tear? I don’t see it. Dr. (Lyle) Cain and Dr. (James) Andrews are our team doctors who deal with a lot of NFL players. They monitor what we do with our players.
“I don’t think this is factual at all, and I resent the fact that anybody in the NFL, with the access we give them, the things we do to try to help them … that anyone would make a statement like that and hurt our program, if it were true. I don’t get that. I have heard people in the media say that before, but I haven’t heard anybody in the NFL actually say that.”
That was basically a threat from Saban. NFL teams need access to programs like Alabama’s so they can do all of their scouting homework, and someone like Saban could make life very difficult for scouts if he wanted to.
The reason we’re talking about this now is Derrick Henry had a whopping 395 carries last season. Since there is now a playoff in college football and Alabama has as good a chance as any team at being part of it every year, Crimson Tide players may have even more tread on their tires when they enter the NFL Draft.
But, as Saban says, that doesn’t mean Alabama’s staff is being careless.
“I think that’s really unfair. We use a catapult system here, which is a GPS system that measures wear and tear on players,” he said. “We certainly keep a balance in what we do. We also keep a record of how our players progress through the season and how they finish the season, based on the workload we have,” Saban said. “Those players all improve their workload throughout the season. We had the lowest injury rate of any team in our conference, which is the only way we can measure it. I think a lot of those things are not even true.”
Alabama had a disappointing first day of the NFL Draft this year, and we know how Saban felt about that. Did that have anything to do with the perception that his players are more banged up than players from other schools? We highly doubt it.
