It remains a piece, and still a relatively significant chunk of the puzzle, in the ongoing process of evaluating NFL draft prospects.

But as scouts continue to struggle convincing high-profile players to run the 40-yard dash, and sometimes must cajole even players projected as middle-round prospects to participate in on-field workouts, the annual NFL predraft combine has evolved into more of an interview than a full-blown audition.

More than just scouting

While the essence of the annual scouting combine in Indianapolis remains evaluating players for the draft, the city becomes the center of the NFL's universe for a week, and so there are ancillary meetings that go on as well. In conjunction with the combine sessions, the NFL's influential competition committee began a three-day series of meetings on Monday, sessions which could lay the groundwork for potential 2003 rules changes. In a somewhat informal setting, the committee will commence talks on possible changes to the current overtime system and to the instant replay system. "This really is a precursor to our March meetings," said Tampa Bay general manager Rich McKay, co-chairman of the competition committee. "But with all of us in the same place, at the same time, it's a good excuse for us to get together and go through some things." The competition committee conducts its formal sessions March 7-15, about two weeks before the annual NFL meetings, this year in Phoenix. In addition to the competition committee, the combine provides a setting for other committees to convene informally, for coaches to meet, for the NFLPA to conduct a seminar for agents and for draft prospects. --Len Pasquarelli

Even this year, with combine officials making a major attempt to loosen up the schedule a bit and to relieve some of the inherent anxiety attached to the sessions in Indianapolis, there is no guarantee that more than two-thirds of the 325-350 players on hand will complete the entire process. The combine may be more player-friendly than in the past -- players will now be afforded a two-day break, for instance, between the grueling Cybex test and the 40-yard dash -- but there still won't be much more than a handful of consensus first-round choices who will take the time to break a sweat.

In fact, most of the players projected as first- or even second-round choices in April still feel they can only dent their stock with a subpar 40-yard time.

And so they will go through the tedious physical examination, interview with the teams that have requested an audience, and never take their running shoes out of the duffle bag. And if that is the equivalent of a word processor seeking a job, but refusing to take the typing test, then so be it.

"The most important thing, from what people tell me, is to let the teams get a good (physical) and to let them get to know you a bit," said Michigan State wide receiver Charles Rogers. "The other stuff, well, that's why the schools have a 'pro day' or you have an individual workout for the scouts. The way I hear it, they don't hold it against you as much if you don't run, not the way they used to."

Indeed, that has become the case, as most personnel directors arrive at the combine now fully cognizant that the ground rules have changed. Years of propaganda, of tweaking the schedule to make it more conducive for all of the prospects to do all of the drills, have failed to significantly increase the number of players who fully complete every phase.

The numbers of players who participate in every drill, roughly two-thirds of the prospects invited, has remained fairly constant for the past five years.

Even with the combine expanded by two full days this year, with much of the schedule more realistic and more rest and relaxation time built into it, scouting staffs are pragmatic about the results they figure to see.

So when the combine begins on Tuesday, with the first group of players (kickers, some offensive linemen and running backs) trickling into the downtown hotel where the prospects are bivouacked, the general managers and personnel directors pretty much know what to expect once again.

While they would prefer to see players dressed in shorts, and with running shoes on in the RCA Dome, most talent evaluators have quietly come to grips with the lowered expectations of the combine sessions. In what the players have come to regard as a cattle call, teams are going to milk only so much out of the prospects, and are increasingly receptive to that reality.

"I'm not sure," said Carolina Panthers personnel director Jack Bushofsky, "what more we can do (to get players to run). We've bent over backwards now. The agents tell the kids not to run until they're on their own campus and so that's how it is. The truth is, we're all going to (individual) workouts on campus now anyway, so you figure you'll catch a kid there. That's just how the process has evolved and you have to live with it."

Actually the intention of the combine, when first implemented, was to cut back on the expenses of having scouts travel all over the country to work out prospects. The rationale: Get most of the top prospects in one location, have them all work out under the same conditions, and reduce the redundancy that has always been a staple of the scouting process.

In theory, the concept was a brainstorm, especially for the first decade or so. Even as recently as the late '80s, when Deion Sanders torched the allegedly sluggish surface at the RCA Dome with a 4.28 clocking in the 40, most of the premier prospects participated. Said Sanders: "It was like a competition. You know, like, 'Can you beat this?' Then guys just stopped running. No one wanted to hang his reputation on one 40(-yard dash), you know?"

Truth be told, no one ever did, in reality.

	“	The most meaningful part now is the physical, because there is such a small degree of subjectivity there, and you really need a thorough work-up. You're going to invest millions of dollars on a guy, so you want to know why there is a little looseness in his knees, or how he has (rehabilitated) an injury. So you get that from the medical people and then you move on. ”
		— Vinny Cerrato, Washington Redskins personnel director

But over the years players came to sense, in part because scouts placed so much pressure on them to run at the combine, that the Indianapolis sessions were a make-or-break experience. Rather than viewing the workouts as only a portion of the evaluation, prospects regarded it as a day of reckoning, and decided they preferred to audition in their campus comfort zone.

Some old-guard scouts, who blame agents for the failure of the combines in recent years, resent that mentality. The more enlightened (read: younger) of the scouts understand the players' reluctance a bit more and have reshaped their expectations for the sessions.

"The most meaningful part now is the physical, because there is such a small degree of subjectivity there, and you really need a thorough work-up," said Washington Redskins personnel director Vinny Cerrato. "You're going to invest millions of dollars on a guy, so you want to know why there is a little looseness in his knees, or how he has (rehabilitated) an injury. So you get that from the medical people and then you move on."

Ironically, the physical exam is the element of the combine process that the players most dread, because it can literally mean eight hours of poking and prodding, especially for the prospects coming off injuries. It takes just one of 32 team doctors to seek further x-rays and, if that happens, a guy is doomed to sitting around waiting for the results.

The other most tedious component to the combine, the team interviews, has been addressed this year. Each franchise had to submit by Jan. 31 a list of no more than 60 players with whom it was requesting interview time. The limit for the interviews this year is 15 minutes.

So instead of traipsing from one team's suite to another at near-midnight, and then taking a 6 a.m. wake-up call for breakfast the next day, players will catch a break of sorts.

"You want their first official exposure to the NFL to be less of a strain," said Baltimore general manager Ozzie Newsome. "We're trying to create a much less stressful atmosphere for the players and, hopefully, some of them will respond and actually get into the dome and work out. I'm not saying that's going to be the case. But even if it isn't, we want to establish a comfort level with the players, because that will pay off for us.

"You hope these are guys who are going to be around the league for 10 years maybe. So if you can get a rapport with them, it's a good head-start, really."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.