Joe Reedy of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports when it comes to evaluating talent in the draft, Bengals coach Marvin Lewis is always quick to point out “the film doesn’t lie”.

On Friday on Dan Dakich’s show in Indianapolis, Lewis did chide those who go through unusual steps of preparing for the combine, saying that the way most go about it is “asinine”.

The Bengals did show last year, with the selection of Andre Smith, that a disastrous combine won’t wreck their chances of being selected. And for that case, neither does the pro day.

Among other things from the interview, courtesy of our friends at Sports Radio Interviews:

On players who leave school to workout and prepare for the Combine: “The other one that just kills me is that they spend three or four years with a strength coach on a college campus and as soon as the season’s over they go somewhere else to some guy who doesn’t know them from a hole in the wall and pay this guy a bunch of money. It doesn’t make any sense at all. It used to be that they had to pay for it and now it’s part of the agent deal. They’ve cultivated a whole industry out of it. It doesn’t make sense. It’s actually asinine that if I go to school in Florida, now I have to go to Arizona to train. If I go to school in Arizona, I have to go to Georgia to train. These guys have the best facilities and the best people working with them year round and now all the sudden they got to go somewhere else. You don’t need to go away. A football player is a football player.”

On how much stock he puts in workouts at the Combine: “The workout becomes a confirmation for a lot of players. It’s got to be judged individually with the player. The number one thing is what that guy has done on his college campus. So as these college players who are going to be underclassmen who may be listening to your show should know to take stock in what they do on the football field their – junior and senior – their last two seasons and not get all caught up in what this is.”

On what the NFL Scouting Combine is: “This is just a confirmation; that I can run. I weigh this much. I’m smart enough. I can carry on a conversation. I can learn. I can understand. And I’m a good person.”