The NFL Combine is where the best athletes in college football come and compete against each other to see who gets the best times and stats in drills and workouts. The better you do, the higher your draft stock could be, which would make you go earlier in the draft but some players have a bad combine and lose some of their stock which makes them go later in the draft. There are athletes who choose to not workout at the combine so they don’t risk lowering their stock. It is an invite only event, with only 324 college players receiving invitations this year. This year’s NFL combine was at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana where the Indiana Colts play. The event has been held at the same location since 1987 and has already planned to have the 2026 NFL combine here as well.
The NFL draft will be taking place at Lambeau Field, Titletown and the Resch Complex. It is in Green Bay Wisconsin from April 24th to April 26th. During the NFL draft, there is the green room. This room is for the selected players who the NFL teams predict they will draft in the first round. These are the players that if accepted, will be in person for the draft. The rest of the players will be at their homes or other places waiting for the call from the GMs. These players will have cameras set up so they can be shown when they are drafted. In total there will be 224 draft picks, 7 rounds split between the 32 teams. Some teams have more or less picks than others because they can trade for them for other players or for better picks in the future drafts. The better you do the season before the higher your draft rank is. For example, the Eagles won the Superbowl so they have the 32nd pick and the last pick in the first round. The Tennessee Titans ended the 2024-2025 season with the worst record of 3-14 and will receive the 1st pick of the draft.
We at Belleville High School have had a couple of our very own players be able to make it, get drafted and play in the NFL. Some of the notable players we currently have playing the NFL right now are Arlington Hambright, BHS 2014 graduate and Kaevon Merriweather, BHS 2018 graduate. Arlington Hambright played at Belleville from 2010-2014 where he ended up not having any stars. He ended up going the junior college route and played at Garden City Community College for 2 years before transferring to Oklahoma State University. He played there for 2 years with one of them ending short because of an injury. After this he transferred to Colorado for his final season of college football. He then would go on to be selected 226th overall by the Chicago Bears. He has played with 4 different teams and is currently on the Tennessee Titans in his 6th season in the NFL.
Kaevon Merriweather played at Romulus High School for his first 3 years of High School and for his senior year he transferred to Belleville High School. This is the year where he broke out and committed to the University of Iowa. He played here for 4 years from 2018-2022 where he had a good couple seasons and in his senior year he had a breakout year. He received First Team All American by CBS Sports. In the 2023 NFL draft he ended up going undrafted but shortly after got picked up by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent. He played there for a year before getting waived by the squad. He would then get picked up by the Detroit Lions practice squad for a little over a month before getting re-signed to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
