Indianapolis — The 225-pound bench press is the new 40-yard dash.
Plenty of players have long skipped the 40 at the NFL scouting combine, preferring to run it at their college pro days instead.
Now, it’s the bench press they’re forgoing because it was moved from the day prior to on-field drills at Lucas Oil Stadium to the same day, in part to accommodate the shift of workouts to prime time for television.
Only 18 of 59 offensive linemen opted to see how many times they could lift the weights Friday.
Other positions are seeing a similar rash of players skipping the one drill even injured players routinely agreed to.