Guest Blog: NFL Combine 2023 - Exos Ready

Greatness really is a team sport at the Robb O’Hagan household. It’s pretty amazing when you get to share the work you do daily with those you love the most, and this weekend, at the NFL Combine, I got to do just that.

My son Sam, who is in his freshman year of college and aspires to be a sports journalist, came with me to cheer on our Exos athletes at the NFL Combine. If you followed our Exos Sports channels this weekend you know that our coaches got these athletes READY and I want to take this opportunity to shout out our Exos teammates who have dedicated the past few months to preparing these athletes for this moment.

Their work paid off, seeing athlete after athlete enter into the Exos ballroom at all hours of the day seeking their coach, during this impactful moment was incredible to watch. I am SO proud to be part of this team and to have shared this moment with my son.

As I mentioned, Sam is an aspiring sports journalist. After we left Indianapolis, he was so inspired that he wrote a recap of his experience that I wanted to share. OK obviously I am a bit biased ??, but I think this does a fantastic job of showcasing just how special this NFL Combine experience is.

I want to say thank you to the entire Exos team at the NFL Combine, for not only getting these athletes ready for their big moment, but for finally getting Sam to admit that I am a “pretty cool mom.”!

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NFL Combine 2023 - Exos Ready

Written by Sam Robb O'Hagan

When Tennessee WR Jalin Hyatt’s name finally appeared in the bottom left corner of the TV, Exos’ headquarters at the 2023 NFL Combine fell silent. It was a loud silence. Dietitians had their hands in front of their mouths, stuck together to form the universal symbol of prayer. Coaches, agents, filmmakers, and fellow athletes all gathered around the curious TV in the corner.

Jalin is a superstar in these parts. Less than 20 hours earlier, two NFL Films producers, camera rigs and all, sat against the wall in the hallway leading to the Exos ballroom waiting for him. At least an hour and a half they waited, and when Hyatt finally emerged from the elevator, a microphone was quickly attached and the cameras started rolling.

Jalin is widely regarded as the fastest receiver in this year’s class. Many who cover the NFL and the draft have him as a first-round pick. I’ve listened to many of my favorite draft podcasts drool over his speed for several months now.?

After a series of come on Jalin!’s, which slowly grow louder as he passes each timing gate on the field, his time comes in. It’s a 4.41 unofficial, which becomes an official 4.4 flat. A good time, no doubt. The room is satisfied. Had Jalin came out last year, my intuition would probably have been that he can run faster.

But something tells me, regardless of how quickly Jalin runs past defenders in pads and a helmet when I watch him on TV, that a couple of months ago, he was running quite a bit slower than a 4.4 flat in spandex.

Being an NFL fan is a strange existence, really. The practice of fandom can have such a profound emotional impact (I’m a diehard Bears fan, and I cried into a pillow on my couch for an hour after their loss to the Eagles in the 2018 Wild Card — Sarah will tell you). The emotions that watching this sport can evoke, from the TV or the nosebleeds, are extraordinary.?

I spent most of my paycheck from my first summer job on jerseys. I wore those jerseys, with the names of my favorite players plastered across my back, like a badge of honor and not a precarious use of money. When the Bears lose, I punch the air. I curse under my breath, then very much over it. I cry. And when the Bears finally do win, enough to make the Super Bowl, I’ll spend most of another paycheck to fly to Chicago and watch with strangers.

All of that emotion, and when I pause and think about it, the manner in which I’ve always viewed the players is so robotic. The subconscious profiling of the players on screen is inevitable. I expect things from them without coming within ten connections of knowing them. When they don’t meet those expectations, I take the liberty to be disappointed in them. That’s not good enough, I say to myself, after they throw an interception or drop a touchdown.?

Even referring to them, which really means thinking of them, as players, and not people, is bizarre. It’s the kind of thing that only feels normal because you’re never actually forced to think about it.

It took less than a minute in the Exos ballroom to be forced to confront that warped perception of normality.?

Myles Murphy, a consensus first-round pick, was running up and down the room. All 6-foot-5, 268 pounds of him, doing high knees across my line of vision, the same cardio workout I refused to take seriously during each and every gym class over four years of high school.

The list of athletes is long. Myles was the first, O’Cyrus Torrence, another projected first-round pick, was the last. My first sight of Myles, and the punching of his name into my notes app that followed, was like glimpsing god. My first sight of O’Cyrus, and the 12 other names of potential first-rounders I typed into my list in between, was nothing more than an ordinary encounter. He might as well have been anyone else.

There’s so much power in that insignificance. The voice of the NFL draft superfan nagged at me from time to time, of course. I don’t think the feeling of holy shit, that’s O’Cyrus Torrence will ever truly escape me. But by the end of my 60-odd hours in that tiny ballroom, the urge to resort to the inhuman perception of the players was suppressed.?

And I don’t think that was simply a symptom of the fatigue that comes with seeing so many celebrities walk through the same room, one after the other. In that ballroom, they aren’t celebrities at all. They’re people.

They’ve worked with the coaches for weeks. Many arrived, months ago, running in the 4.6s, 4.7s, even the 4.8s. The agent of Grant DuBose, moments after the wide receiver ran an unofficial 4.57, embraces coach Brent Callaway, the true celebrity in the room. You have my will, bro, he tells Brent. He came in running a 4.9.

The coaches have a tangible rapport with each of their athletes, 99 of them, this year. Defining them as coach and athlete doesn’t feel right. They’re friends. Brent, coaching out of Texas, Nic Hill, out of Arizona, and Anthony Hobgood, out of Florida, all celebrate the success of their athletes like their friend just got promoted. BOOM’s and LET’S GO!’s are the immediate post-forty expressions, but they’re followed quickly by a congratulatory text to their friend. Each and every one of them.

It didn’t appear dissimilar to the overwhelming mind scramble, and the frantically hyped text that followed, when each of my high school friends told our group chat they had gotten into college.

So no, Jalin Hyatt isn’t really a superstar in these parts, is he? He’s a friend, a member of the family. As I peered into the dietitians’ headquarters down the hall during Jalin’s cameo for NFL Films, his infectious personality was evident. He and the dietitians weren’t so much performing for the camera as they were simply hanging out, catching up after a long week.?

How amazing that must have felt for Jalin. After such an incomprehensibly loaded week, with 32 different medicals, 32 different team interviews, countless interactions with the media, and the looming financial-implications of the biggest on-field job interview of his life, there the cameras were once again, at 10:30 at night, waiting for him. To be able to decompress with his friends, while still fulfilling his mind bending, and at times, cruel media responsibilities — I can’t even imagine the relief. That’s what Exos does.

I suppose my mom is pretty damn cool, after all.