Believe it or not, the most important thing NFL teams are looking for at the NFL Combine usually isn't a 40-time, bench press reps or even the interviews.
It's the medical reports.
Indeed, each player goes through medical exams and team doctors can take a look at the results. This is what teams don't know about a player -- they can see his game tape, they can see him speak to the press and they can learn from his college teammates what kind of person he is -- but they can't get inside his body and figure out what's right or wrong medically.
For Aldon Smith, that's particularly important. He's coming off of a year in which he broke his fibula and, even though he returned to the field later that season, teams wanted to take a closer look at him, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Smith got a lot of questions from teams - and team medical officials - about the injury. "Yeah, they all thought it was an ankle, because I guess they thought it was lower, and that's what was X-rayed at first," Smith said. "But other than that, it wasn't a big deal."
Smith said he got some x-rays and the leg was "fine". We'll see what NFL teams have to say about it because Smith is expected to be drafted in the top half of the first round meaning he'll be paid some big bucks. Teams want to know they're getting a high quality product in return.