Let's fast-forward to the NFL of 2010. Referring once again to the bell curve example, what you see for 2010 represents the extraordinary change in talent recruitment philosophy adopted by the NFL and implemented in the early 1970's via its NFL Combine. As many of you know from your statistics courses, the far right or far left tail-end of the bell curve is where you find the "exceptional" members of a given population. In the 2010 nfl,com world, the far right positioning of the recruiting bell curve reflects the "best of the best" of recruiting prospects. So, what you see today is an NFL that, via the Combine process, learned the secret of how to recruit ONLY from a pool of the VERY BEST TALENT available in college sports. Moreover, due to the effectiveness of the Combine's aptitude screening process, the NFL no longer was forced to accept under-sized or under-talented, Joe Lunchbucket walk-ons as they did in the league's early years. Nothing against Mr. Shapiro or others like him who braved the professional gridiron with less than a full complement of physical tools. I have no doubt they were great players in their day. However, players like that are no longer considered viable by NFL personnel managers/recruiters today because the pool of qualified prospects is now restricted to just the aptitude-rich athletes (in the far right-end of the bell curve) - those with the football talent to pass the Combine's regimen of physical and mental tests with flying colors. In effect, via the Combine, the NFL shrewdly figured out how to shrink its population of potential recruits from a huge number of available college athletes to a fraction of this number to include only the very best athletes suited to playing football in the NFL.