The Most Dominant NFL Combine Performances

every year college athletes flock to Indianapolis to take part in the NFL combine it's a circus of sorts where NFL hopefuls compete to see who can run the fastest jump the highest lift the most weight all with the intent to increase their draft status and hopefully convince a team to draft them higher than they probably should players trained specifically for these events trying to marginally increase their performance these minute optimizations can be the difference between generational wealth and less generational wealth once in a while we see a player dominate a single event less often do we see a player dominate multiple events and even less often has a player dominated all six main physical events but it's happened so let's talk about him how can we classify a dominant combine performance well there's not a single way to do this but here's my attempt first we take all 7,766 combine performances since 1999 and group them by position then we retrieve each player's results for the six main physical events the 40- yard dash vertical jump broad jump three cone drill 20- yard shuttle and bench press as an example here's Debo Samuel's combine numbers for those six events we then find what rank Samuel achieved in each event compared to all other wide receivers and calculate the percentile in which he finished take the average of those six percentiles and you're left with a score representative of how dominant the player was at the combine essentially it's the average percentile of a player's Combine results relative to their positional group players will sometimes opt out of events that they know they may not perform well in or don't think is relevant to show to draft Scouts these players have been excluded from consideration you have to have completed all six main physical events to qualify yes this does lead to Great combine performances like Anthony Richardson's to be left out but hey I don't make the rules with the dominance methodology established here's every combine participant's dominant score by year there is a bias against older combine performances because the players during that era generally didn't complete all six events from 1999 to 205 only four players did participating in all six events started gaining track in around 2010 and the golden years of the NFL combine were the mid-2010s Where in three consecutive years the third second and most dominant NFL combine performances took place let's first take a look at the bronze Place finisher that's l Johnson he runs like an athletic tight end I'm not even saying like a tight end he runs like an athletic tight end coming out of college Lane Johnson was a highly sought after off offensive tackle who Scouts claimed possessed ideal athleticism in addition to a 6'6 303 lb frame his performance at the 2013 combine solidified what people already knew about him but most people didn't expect just how freakishly athletic Johnson's Combine results would be one of the few people who did predict Lane Johnson's Combine results was Lane Johnson during a meal with his agent on the day of the combine Johnson said I'm going to rip this F combined to such a level that these have never seen anything like it and when it's all said and done I'm going to go top five and he was spoton these had never seen anything like it Johnson finished the six events ranked second fourth fourth again 14th 41st and 81st on the all-time lists among offensive tackles even on the bench press and shuttle his two worst events he ranked in the s 4th and 89th percentiles which is still pretty great but his dominance was on full display in the other four events his 472 40-yard dash is second alltime among offensive tackles 1 100 behind first place and it ties him with wide receivers Anquan Balden and Jawan Jennings despite both of these guys weighing nearly 90 lbs less than Johnson and his 118in broad jump broke Tony ugo's record that had stood since 2007 Johnson's record jump wouldn't be beaten until 2018 if you pair that 118in broad jump with his 34in vertical and 7.31 second 3 con drill we find that he's got a profile that's closer to the average running back than to the average offensive linemen it's been over 10 years since Johnson competed at the combine hundreds of other offensive tackles with access to better training nutrition and sports science have had their results tracked despite the influx of competitors four of Johnson's six events remain in at least the 96th percentile with two of them in the 99th percentile when it was all said and done Johnson did end up going top five he called a shot and he delivered posting the third most dominant combine performance but the year after Johnson's [Music] 92.85% and Off to the Races McKinnon will be caught and knocked to the ground at the 9 yd line but the first play of the second half is good for 66 yds unlike Johnson Jerick McKinnon didn't have much attention from NFL Scouts when he came out of Georgia Southern in 2014 mock drafts prior to the combine had McKinnon going either very late in the draft or completely undrafted after his 2014 combine performance he shot up draft boards in the 20-yard shuttle McKinnon posted a time of 412 which was fourth among running backs that year and slotted him in the 84th percentile all time pretty decent this was his worst finish among the six events the only other event that he finished below the 90th percentile was his 683 second3 Krill but McKinnon was fast his 44140 yard dash was second among running backs that year and in the 90th percentile all time and while McKinnon performed well in these three events the last three are where he really separated himself from the pack starting with a vertical leap of 40.5 in and a brad jump of 132 in which plac him in the 96th and 998th percentiles respectively going into the final event McKinnon's dominance score was sitting at a 91.9 two through those five events his dominant score ranked only 23rd he was on the outside looking in and needed a big score on the bench press if he wanted to crack the top three but the bench press is an event especially challenging for running backs it's hard to be both fast and strong and given the importance Scouts place on the 40-yard dash running backs usually prioritize Speed and Agility over strength in fact if we look at the top 250 bench press scores all time at the Combine by weight of the player we see that the most successful bench pressers often weigh over 300 lb lb and 249 of the 250 weigh more than 225 lb there's one person outside of that range because at the 2014 combine at a body weight of 209 lb Jerick McKinnon put up 32 reps on the bench press only one running back has ever had more bench press reps than McKinnon Alex Barnes had 34 reps in the 2019 combine but he weighed 226 lb and was significantly slower ranking in just the 40th percentile in the 40-yard dash while a running back like Barnes prioritized strength over speed McKinnon prioritized strength and speed he finished in the 99.8 percentile in the bench press and vaulted his way into the second most dominant combined performance of all time which led the Minnesota Vikings to take a chance on him and draft him in the third round after which Hall of Fame running back Adrien Peterson had this to say about McKinnon he's probably the best athlete on the team you don't think he can Ben more than 400 lb but he does you don't think he can squat over 500 he does he keeps me on top of my game I'll tell you that pretty high praise for a guy who was only the 112th ranked recruit coming out of the state of Georgia back in 2010 and it just so happens that the man with the most dominant NFL Combine performance was also in that same 2010 Georgia high school class hit and sacked Blind Side coming at him was Vic Beasley after a successful four years of college at Clemson where he set the school's career sack record Vic Beasley went into the 2015 combine with high expectations Scouts called Beasley one of the best pure Edge rushers with the speed and strength to become an absolute Menace in the NFL Beasley confirmed this sentiment with his combine performance he showed no weakness in any of the six events with Johnson and McKinnon there were one or two events where their dominance waver but not Beasley in each event he was in at least the 90th percentile and he finished top 10 all time in four of the six events ranking seventh in the 40-yard dash second in the vertical jump fourth in the broad jump and seventh in the bench press of the entire Field's 7,766 combine performances 1,531 of them ran a 40-yard dash of 4.53 or better 105 of those players also had a 41-in vertical jump 50 of those players also had a 130in broad jump 39 of those players also ran a 691 shuttle 30 of those players also ran a 4153 con drill and one of those players also had 35 bench press reps that one player is Vic Beasley he ended up with a 96.7 dominance score and his combined performance made headlines across media Outlets Beasley was considered a first round Prospect he leapt into top 10 consideration and the Atlanta Falcons took him with the eighth overall pick unfortunately it's long been said that good combine scores don't translate to good NFL players there's a reason why the NFL combine is sometimes referred to as the underwear Olympics often the most dominant players of the NFL combine aren't necessarily the most dominant players in the NFL this analysis supports that claim from 1999 to 2023 the first round of NFL drafts produced an average of 12 .6 pro bowlers the top 31 most dominant combine performances produced a total of eight pro bowlers which makes for a pretty weak theoretical draft class in fact some of the least dominant combine performances produ some of the better players Dalvin cook Antonio Brown zidus Smith and Jordan puyer all ranked in the bottom quarter of dominant combine performances yet they've all carped out pretty successful NFL careers so does the NFL combine truly matter probably not as much as the hype surrounding it makes it out to be but we can take it at face value he needed to be six or better [Music]

Channel: Full Draft

Views: 294,226

Keywords:

Id: PcxSeN1399g

Length: 11min 56sec (716 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 17 2024