This is not to say that a smart team or executive can’t use the combine to its advantage. It is particularly valuable for teams to get a look at lesser-known players, particularly those from small-time schools, to see how they react to the pressure of the event. That’s true even though teams know a lot of these players paid for (or had agents pay for) special pre-combine training to ace the test.

But no college looks askance at a high SAT score that came courtesy of expensive pre-test training. No parents (or politicians) looking at a school district’s standardized test scores thinks less of it even if they know the scores were gamed by schools spending half the year teaching to the test. After all, even if the scores got a little boost, the high scores still mean it’s the best district, right? Plausible deniability is everywhere.

Plausible deniability is endemic to personnel decisions at pretty much every corporation in America. Think of the law firms who will hire only Ivy League graduates, or the financial shops that will hire MBAs only from the U.S. News & World Report top 20. If some hires fail, so what?

Hey, I went with the big-time schools; it’s not my fault if somebody flames out.

The problem isn’t necessarily in the gathering of statistics. After all, if Maurice Clarett comes in running slower than Dick Bavetta, you want to know that before the draft. The problem is in gathering statistics with a purpose other than to overanalyze players to death. Don’t those games they play in college mean anything? Or shouldn’t they mean more than what happens at the RCA Dome in one week in February?

The NFL Scouting Combine gives teams reams of information so they don’t have to be so blasé about their own plausible deniability. Success has many mothers and failure is an orphan, but thanks to the combine, teams have the data they need to blame the orphan.

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