There's only so much for teams to truly glean from athletic testing and on-field workouts at the NFL combine. A contact sport like football, after all, can never be properly simulated in a tank top and shorts, especially when attempting to deduce a player's potential performance at the game's highest level. Nothing about the 40-yard dash, 225-pound bench press, or three-cone drill indicates a prospect's in-game instincts or ability to read and react in real time.

Another, more overlooked aspect of why the pre-draft process isn't the best indicator of a player's value? As Miami Dolphins linebacker Jerome Baker told The Athletic's Chris Perkins, the hectic travel schedule around the combine and meetings with interested teams easily leaves players sapped of energy and enthusiasm.

“I probably visited five teams, and it was all in a span of a week,” he said. “Pretty much, I’d go home, change, go on another flight. It was flight, flight, flight, back to back to back.”

Now more than a year into his NFL career, the third-round pick in the 2018 has already felt the keen disparity between “combine shape and football shape,” too.

“You’re just more confident,” Baker said. “You’re ready for football shape. Combine shape and football shape are two different things. … You can definitely feel it out on the field.”

Baker acquitted himself well as a rookie, starting 11 games at outside linebacker, including the season-opener. He finished the 2018 season with 79 tackles, four tackles for loss, three sacks, four quarterback hits, three passes defensed, and an interception returned for a touchdown.