What's the correlation between the NFL Combine and players drafted?

Some stocks are up. Others are down. The NFL Combine has captured our hearts once again as NFL fans, which means we suddenly have a solid set of names added to our "please draft this player" list for the Kansas City Chiefs. We suspect the team actually has the same sort of list as well.

What we cannot tell, however, is what their list might look like. Every year we create a list of the Chiefs' draft interests -- the list of players they've interviewed, scouted, worked out and whistled at as he walked by. We even published a list of all 24 players the team was reportedly connected to at the Combine. The question is whether or not what we know makes a difference.

It's interesting to look back at years past and see how little NFL Combine interaction between the Chiefs and a player had to do with the final product. In 2014, the Chiefs were linked to 17 different players, many of which were exciting prospects at key positions that fans were undoubtedly interested in adding -- names like Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, Calvin Pryor and Marqise Lee. In the end, zero out of 17 ended up with the Chiefs.

In 2013, we have the Chiefs linked with 12 total prospects at the NFL Combine and only one ended up on the final roster: quarterback Tyler Bray. And if you'll remember, he was an undrafted free agent. So you could spin it in such a way to say that the Chiefs have drafted zero players they've been linked with at the Combine over the last two years.

When you go back another year, the trend isn't that much better with only one for six in 2012, but much of that has likely to do with our own record-keeping at AP than anything else. Wide receiver Junior Hemingway was the only player drafted out of the six we had linked to the team at the Combine, but again it's impossible to tell with the records we have. Obviously the Chiefs talked to more than six players -- that's just what we knew publicly at the time.

All things considered, it's fairly easy to at least see that the players being mentioned now aren't necessarily likely to be the ones announced behind the podium as the Chiefs turn in their draft cards. How many of you had Dee Ford on your radar before last year's selection? That doesn't mean these days aren't important, since finding out what you do not want is often as important as what you do.