Editor's note: This originally ran on Feb. 27, 2017.

The NFL hosts its scouting combine this week, and, every year, the league is abuzz with talk of its next big stars, fueled by eye-popping combine numbers by players who seem destined for greatness.

But every year, those combine stars rekindle memories of players who didn’t live up to the hype once they made NFL rosters.

Combine stars to NFL busts. Does that sound too harsh? Tony Mandarich doesn’t think so, at least not in his case, and he’s usually at or near the top of every list of players who failed to parlay combine success into NFL glory.

“I’ve been asked ... were you a bust in Green Bay? Hell, yes, I was a bust in Green Bay, and none of it was Green Bay’s fault,” Mandarich told ESPN.com. “It was all my fault, and I blamed everybody but me.”

Vernon Gholston, Mike Mamula, Darrius Heyward-Bey, Matt Jones and Mandarich are just a few examples of players with brilliant combine results whose careers did not match up to expectations.

But why does this happen? If the combine is supposed to be an indication of athleticism, why do some of those who excelled at the event fail to replicate that in the NFL? And if a player earns the "bust" label, is it his fault or the fault of the team that drafted him? Is it a product of the system?

The answer might just be all of the above.

Mandarich blames nobody but himself. He played only three seasons with the Packers after Green Bay selected him second overall in the 1989 draft.

His career at Michigan State, fueled by now-admitted steroid abuse, might have been enough to make him one of the first players drafted. But his combine -- in which he ran a 4.65 40-yard dash and put up 39 reps in the bench press -- sealed the deal.

“I’ll call a spade a spade, and I was a spade in Green Bay,” said Mandarich, who battled drug and alcohol addictions during his first stint in the league. Mandarich was out of the league for several years before he made a comeback with the Colts in the mid-1990s.

Mandarich, who retired due to injury after three years in Indianapolis and now runs a photography business in Arizona, said his bust status was all his fault.

Nevertheless, the teams should also shoulder some responsibility. They spend months digging into the lives of these players, only to ignore obvious red flags come draft day.

Jones, a quarterback-turned-receiver, was released after four years in Jacksonville, partially because of arrests and off-the-field issues. One NFL coach said it’s likely that character flags would have come up in pre-draft evaluations.

“We know everything these guys have ever done in their life,” the coach said. “If they pick their nose, we know.”

Gholston was taken sixth overall by the Jets in 2008 after one solid season at Ohio State and a spectacular combine in which he put up some of the best numbers at his position. He was released after just three years and no sacks.

The Jets considered Gholston special enough to take him in the top 10. Another team ranked Gholston no better than a late first-rounder or early second-rounder.

Somewhere along the way, the evaluation process failed.

Mamula increased his stock with a brilliant combine, and Heyward-Bey wowed Al Davis and the Raiders with his 4.3-second 40-yard dash speed.

They both had talent, but probably not enough to be selected as high first-round picks. Mamula played for six years before injuries forced him to retire, and Heyward-Bey is still in the league as a reserve with the Steelers, having outlasted many of his fellow first-rounders in the 2009 draft class.

Both would have been considered successes if they had been taken in a later round, but neither could live up to the weight of the expectations put on his shoulders from teams drafting him too high after he turned in an impressive combine performance.

“Sometimes guys just go too high, and then they don’t meet expectations being the sixth pick in the draft,” one NFL coach said. “If he’s 30th, 34th or 35th, then that’s OK. ... Unfortunately, that’s what happens. When you go too high ... it ends up being a negative on you.”

If the combine works as intended, it is just one piece of the scouting process that can confirm or deny what teams see on film. If a player looks sluggish on film and runs a slow 40-yard dash, those suspicions are confirmed.

These numbers can be helpful, but they can also lie. The true assessment of a player is usually somewhere between his game tape and his off-the-field history. Like many things in draft season, the combine is almost artificial. Almost every draftable player now spends thousands of dollars and months preparing for the drills, interviews and tests.

“The combine is just a front to get in,” former NFL safety and current ESPN analyst Matt Bowen said. “It’s part of the cover charge to get into the league. It’s a take-home test now. You know the drills. You know exactly what you need to do.”

Ravens tight end Ben Watson, who was taken by the Patriots in the first round of the 2004 draft, recalled how he prepared for every aspect of the combine, from the proper way to warm up for the 40-yard dash to practice Wonderlic exams (Watson scored a 48, one of the highest in league history).

“They’re playing for a chance to make it into the league so they can play football,” Watson said. “It would behoove them to train for what’s going to be a large determining factor in them getting drafted and getting a chance to make it to a rookie camp. ...

“Obviously, the film study of your senior year is over. You can’t put any more in the bank, as far as football goes, and it would be foolish to just show up to the combine having never done a drill or run the 40 when you’re going to be graded on that.”

It was the same for Bowen, who remembers practicing the start of the 40-yard dash for months. Bowen, who was taken in the sixth round, finished in 4.49 seconds, one of the fastest times among the safeties that year. Bowen was taken with the 198th pick in 2000, one spot ahead of Tom Brady.

But after the training is finished and a player is in the league, the game changes. If a player isn’t 100 percent invested in the game, or if he’s a bad fit for the team, his career might be over before it starts. That’s why the combine can give clues but can’t tell the whole story.

“I do think the combine holds great value. I think some of the athletes that excel at the combine and don’t excel in the NFL, I think a big part of that is the system they’re in,” Mandarich said. “That all being said, that’s no excuse for me. I was shooting myself in the foot since day one in Green Bay.”

A player who might have been able to get by in college without 100 percent effort probably can’t do the same in the NFL. That isn't necessarily something a team will know until it drafts him, Bowen said.

“Character is going to beat talent, it’s going to beat scheme, it’s going to beat the playbook every single time,” Bowen said. “How they fit into your culture, what type of culture you’re trying to build? Because there’s certain things that don’t show up on tape. What type of leadership prospects they have, how they deal with adversity, how they deal with injuries, can they play hurt? ...

“If you can’t play hurt in the NFL, you can’t play. Because everyone’s hurt. After the first kickoff in Week 1, everyone in the NFL is hurt.”

That’s why the most important drill at the combine isn't the 40 or the three-cone drill. It’s the medical tests and the interviews.

Watson remembers being shocked at some of the questions asked of him. Teams pressed him on how much football meant to him, using his high grades and two-parent upbringing against him.

"I've been asked ... were you a bust in Green Bay? Hell, yes, I was a bust in Green Bay, and none of it was Green Bay's fault."

Tony Mandarich, who was drafted No. 2 overall by the Packers in 1989

“There were questions about me: if I could block and if football was important for me because I made good grades, I came from a two-parent household, I didn’t have a rap sheet. It was crazy the things I was hearing,” Watson said. “To me, it felt like, OK, this guy, I wasn’t an honors student or anything, but I made good grades, I had a 3.0, I was a finance major, I was raised by two parents, I didn’t have any trouble in my history, I was respectful, and I had to prove to them that I could play this rough-and-tumble sport, and I was thinking, 'What does any of that have to do with how I play football?'"

Likewise, Bowen remembers how teams seized on a small scar on his wrist that he got from falling off his bike as a 6-year-old. At least eight teams asked if he was hiding medical information.

“They thought maybe I had a secretive wrist surgery that Iowa covered up,” he said. “That’s how important that is. And think about it -- that makes sense. You’re going to invest a lot of money in these prospects. You don’t want some guy who Week 3 of his rookie season says, ‘My wrist hurts. Why? Well, I had surgery I didn’t tell you about.’ Oh my gosh, talk about a disaster.”

But then there’s the other side. Mandarich admits that he was cocky and full of himself, recalling how he asked the assembled scouts if they wanted him to run a 4.5-second 40-yard dash. His college steroid use was a poorly kept secret, he said.

“I think you would have to be dumb not to have known,” Mandarich said. “You can go back at some of the interviews in the late ’80s and early ’90s ... and you’ll see my answer 99 percent of the time was, ‘I’ve never tested positive for steroids.’ ... So that alone is a self-admission because you’re not answering the question.”

It didn’t matter. Mandarich went No. 2 overall.

Why do teams ignore obvious red flags?

“I think sometimes coaching staffs overvalue their own ability -- we can make him great,” Bowen said.

When it comes to character issues, it’s all up to the team’s particular standard.

“Guys do go up and go down [at the combine], but it’s just a matter of how does he work out on your team?” an NFL coach said. “The character part of it ... just how much of it will you tolerate?"

Draft misses happen all the time. There likely will never be a perfect system because of the varying ways teams assess talent. But if they can find a way to prevent the next big bust, they’ll definitely try, Mandarich said.

“I do think the combine carries a decent amount of value. It’s not a great amount of value. I’d call it a spoke in the wheel,” he said. “It’s not the end-all, be-all, but it’s one of the spokes in the wheel to be evaluated by, not just as an athlete, but as a character of a person. ...

“I think that’s more evaluated now than it was when I was at the combine, and I think part of it may be because of people like me that were pretty much screw-ups or in the middle of becoming really bad screw-ups with drugs and alcohol.”

The challenge for all 32 teams this week will be to weed out the screw-ups and other combine stars who won’t make an impact in the NFL and find the players who might not be workout warriors but can help a team succeed. The player taken after Bowen is a good example.