This is the first in a multi-part series profiling Utah State football standout Jalen Royals as he prepares for the upcoming 2025 NFL Draft.
Every year, hundreds of NFL hopefuls descend upon Indianapolis and Lucas Oil Stadium for a week or so for the NFL Scouting Combine.
It is at the combine that prospects interview with teams, have their health and medical histories scrutinized and take part in numerous drills, all the with hope of catching the eye of a NFL franchise or two ahead of the NFL Draft.
Do well at the combine and your draft stock can soar. Do poorly and, well, there is a reason players sometimes skip portions of the combine.
The 2025 NFL Scouting Combine ran from Feb. 24 through March 3, with 329 prospects invited to participate. Among them was Utah State wide receiver Jalen Royals.
Royals spoke with the Deseret News and detailed much of his experience at the combine. It was a unique experience for the Aggie standout, from beginning to end. A positive one on the whole too, Royals said.
“It was helpful for me,” he said. “Getting to showcase my skills, even though I am not 100% (Royals is still recovering from a season-ending injury he suffered last fall during his final season at Utah State).
“It showed the resilience in me. And I ran my routes just as well as people who are fully healthy so that also brought confidence to me.”
Day 1 of the NFL Scouting Combine for Jalen Royals
Royals arrived in Indianapolis on Tuesday, Feb. 25, in time for what was essentially a combine orientation meeting, as he described it.
Essentially all the prospects invited to the combine were in attendance, a collection of the best NFL prospects out there right now.
That resonated with Royals, a former junior college player who made a name for himself at a school in Utah that he hadn’t ever heard of before attending a camp there ahead of the 2022 season.
“It was pretty cool to see all the people, all the players,” Royals said. “Being there and just taking it all in.”
After that larger meeting, prospects were then shuffled into position group meetings of a sort. Royals described it as kind of a walkthrough for the rest of the combine.
The highlight of the first day, though, was interviewing with teams.
Royals interviewed with at least 27 of the 32 teams in the NFL, 15 minute interviews with head coaches, receivers coaches and other team representatives.
More interviews were to follow in later days, but for Royals the chance to sit down and talk with some of the most notable people/minds in football was something to remember.
“The interviews were pretty cool,” he said. “It was crazy that night.”
Day 2 and Day 3 of the NFL Scouting Combine for Jalen Royals
Additional interviews with teams followed the next day, “formal interviews” as Royals called them.
Those were not the main event, however. The majority of the second day of the combine was spent at the hospital.
It was there that Royals underwent a series of medical tests. He specifically mentioned having an EKG and a DaTscan.
In total, he spent about four hours at the hospital undergoing tests, which he said was on the shorter end for most players.
“It’s supposed to be the longest time,” Royals said. “Some people got there at 11 a.m. and didn’t leave (the hospital) until 8 p.m.”
The day ended with another orientation meeting — this one with the NFL Players Association, but health was the overall theme of the day.
That was the case for Day 3 of the combine as well.
There were MRIs, testing of injuries past and current, plus physicals.
“We had a lot of medical stuff,” Royals said.
The third day ended with a photo shoot, with ESPN and NFL Network specifically.
Royals had done photo shoots of a sort while at Utah State, but nothing he’d done previously came close to what happened at the combine.
“Nothing that compares to that,” he said. “It was pretty cool to experience it.”
Day 4 of the NFL Scouting Combine for Jalen Royals
The fourth day of the combine was something of a mixture of the previous days. Interviews mixed with medical tests.
First came interviews with media, and Royals was given a position on the main podium, meaning he fielded questions from a wide swath of media. It was a different experience for the soft-spoken Royals.
From there came one of the more unique experiences of the combine.
Royals was moved from room to room, six in total, where he was examined by doctors in front of NFL personnel, with his complete medical history read aloud again and again.
“They bring us into a room, they list all of our injuries,” he said. “Doctors, you know, pulling and prodding and stuff. And then after that, you walk into another room and they basically just say everything out loud to all these teams. Basically just (for teams) to get a general sense of my injury. It’s like six rooms that you go into. They do it six times.”
That experience was followed by even more interviews with teams. Fifteen-minute informal interviews as requested by teams.
Day 5 of the NFL Scouting Combine for Jalen Royals
The fifth day of the combine was the day fans are most familiar with. Actual combine day. When prospects are measured, weighed, tested and tried in front of fans, television cameras and NFL personnel.
Measurements came first, and that is an experience Royals isn’t soon to forget.
“They have you strip down to your underwear, measure your hand size, wingspan and weight. They have you walk out in front of 30 people,” Royals said.
“It’s crazy,” he added with a laugh.
Photoshoots followed, and those are subsequently followed by more measurements and tests.
After all that, Royals was able to get onto the field for traditional combine fare, and though he didn’t do broad jump or vertical jump, he did do flexibility tests as well as sprints and receiving drills.
Per NFL.com, Royals' measurements at the combine were:
- Height — 6 feet
- Weight — 205 pounds
- Arm length— 30 1/8 inches
- Hand size — 9 1/2 inches
Royals ran a 4.42 second 40-yard dash, had a 10-yard split of 1.49 seconds and did 13 reps on bench press.
His overall combine score was 82, seventh among wide receivers. His prospect grade was a 6.27, making Royals viewed as a probably “average starter” in the NFL.
NFL analyst Lance Zierlein wrote: “Skilled and instinctive, Royals might lack the desired explosiveness, but he makes up for it with his body control and feel for the game. He has good size and is keenly aware of defenders around him, which allows him to adjust routes and improve his chances on contested catches.
“He’s a decent route-runner but doesn’t have the short-area foot quickness and burst to open wide windows for his quarterback. He’s excellent as a zone-beater and uses plus body control and play strength to bring in catches in traffic. Royals is a smooth athlete who can play inside or outside and is best suited for an offense that will value him as a possession target over the first two levels.”
Day 6 of the NFL Scouting Combine for Jalen Royals
The final day of the combine was a short one.
Royals had to wake up early in the morning for a 5 a.m. drug test.
“That was not fun,” he said.
That was followed by a helmet fitting and one final meeting, and then just like that the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine was over for Royals.
It was a unique experience for the former Aggie star, though not an entirely unexpected one.
“I definitely expected a lot of it,” Royals said, noting that his prior experience at the Senior Bowl helped.
Overall it was an enjoyable experience. “Pretty fun,” Royals said. And a glimpse, at times, into his future in the NFL.