I think Shakira would be a great NFL scout.
Last year, I wrote about how to watch the NFL Combine like a smart fan, breaking down why every athletic event in Indy matters and how to gauge it correctly. But I’m going to expand on what, or where, to watch the athletes for the Combine, and I’ll do it using words from the great scribe Shakira:
The hips, simply do not lie.
Much of the Combine’s events are done in a sterile environment, with no stimuli. There’s nobody chasing the players when they run the 40-yard dash, there’s nobody holding a player down when they do the vertical jumps. It’s all meant to make sure that nothing is impeding you from reaching top speed. However, watching how a prospects’ hips move is a great way to judge if a player has the movement skills to be a successful NFL player. Testing their change of direction is like testing an athlete’s response to stimuli, with the direction of their movement being the changing variable. Every player is going to look fast and athletic going in a straight line with no impediments. However, their change of direction could be a much better indicator of overall athleticism, because how quickly you can turn without losing speed or explosiveness affects so many areas in the modern game.
A lot of team lifts done in the offseason center around the Olympic lifts like the hang and power clean, focusing on the transition of power from the lower body into the upper. Oklahoma football released their individual movement coaching points in 2022, which includes the hang clean for “improving ground-based force production.” To put it simply: it helps you be more explosive when putting your feet in the ground.
The hips are a joint, the hinge between the upper and lower body. When your body wants to move something at a rapid pace, the hips are the string that keeps your lower and upper tied together in unison. In sports, the hips are what generates all your power as well. You’ll hear a lot in combat sports that engaging your hips to throw punches and kicks generates more force, causing a chain reaction via the great connector in the body. In football, when you think about tackling, you think of the explosive hits that put a guy in the ground. In order to generate that force, you drive through the feet into the upper body to create the strike that causes a tackle. That force you generate by putting your feet in the ground is moved throughout the body with your hips. The hips activate the core muscles in your body, allowing yourself to launch like a rocket into the opponent. Because you want to keep the head out of the play when tackling, striking with the shoulder and generating force through the hips is critical. Current Las Vegas Raiders’ head coach Pete Carroll spoke at length about the tackling drills he taught while with the Seattle Seahawks, and it shows a lot of emphasis on explosion through the hips.
Now, there won’t be any tackling at the NFL Combine (thank goodness), but there are a lot of ways to find out about the prospects’ hips and how quickly they can generate force. The broad jump is a great example, because when you watch the players do their jumps, you’ll see that it looks like they’re almost throwing themselves through the air. The conversion of power through the hips is super important in those drills, and the best athletes normally show that on the track in Indy, and on tape.
Away from the tackling aspect of the game, watching the route running by the skill positions and change of direction drills for DBs is also a good test of “do the hips lie”. For the most part, the passing at the Combine means nothing for the guys throwing the ball. You’re throwing to someone you never played with, without any defense. However, for the skill position players, being able to sink your hips and change direction without wasted movement is a nice feather in the cap. In a sport predicated on timing, and the concept of time, being able to get in and out of breaks without wasting it is what gets a lot of guys on the field. Now, there are exceptions to the rule (cough cough DK Metcalf), guys who don’t really need to be very good changing directions to be more than serviceable NFL players. However, for the guys that aren’t DK Metcalf, being able to shift gears without losing speed takes top priority. Watch how the receivers get in and out of breaks, sinking their hips without losing speed.
The same could also be said for pass rushers, who are similar to wide receivers in their goal against their respective individual matchups (creating separation). Being able to flatten and bend the corner (shoutout LiAngelo Ball) is what separates the good pass rushers from the elite. You’ll often hear guys talk about “running the hoop”, a drill that’s done at the Combine that’s literally done using a hoop. The hip movement here is important, because the hoop illustrates the pocket. Being able to flip your hips once you’ve made your move on the QB so you don’t run past the passer turns pressures into sacks. You’ll see guys with stiffer hips not be able to flatten and have to rely on other counters to get to the QB, which is fine and can work in the NFL, but most of the top pass rushers have that ability to just bend and use their hips.
The hip movement isn’t always an easy indicator of success, of course. Each guy is different, and the way that they win at their respective positions might not need as much hip movement or flexibility. However, the elite at most positions in the NFL have the hip flexibility and explosion of guys much lighter than themselves, and it proves Shakira right:
The hips don’t lie.
