2026 NFL Combine Thread: 2.26.26 - 3.1.26

[firefox1234]

20 minutes ago, firefox1234 said:

Insightful thread. Seems like athletic testing hasn’t been much of a predictor as I thought it was.

Figured I would save people the click:

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METHODOLOGY

 

This analysis is built on strong work from former Harvard Sports Analysis Collective member Bill Lotter in his series detailing why the NFL Combine actually matters. Lotter used ridge regression to estimate the coefficients for the different Combine results and measure their importance in explaining prospects’ draft positions and value — the latter estimated using Pro Football Reference’s approximate value (AV) over players’ first three seasons.

Approximate value was a tremendous advancement in player valuation and the best public metric available to Lotter at the time of the analysis. The shortcomings of AV mostly relate to its focus on volume and the inability to differentiate between players on the same team for certain position groups that lack traditional stats, such as offensive linemen. Even for position groups with more extensive traditional stats such as tackles and sacks, their production can be more a function of luck and opportunity than adding value.

This is where NFL Plus/Minus can truly add the proper context and weighting to the performance of each player. For my analysis, I’m contrasting Plus/Minus to draft position, in substitution of AV. You can find the most recent Plus/Minus numbers for the 2024 season on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, which pointed to Ja’Marr Chase and Myles Garrett being the most valuable non-quarterbacks in the NFL.

NFL Plus/Minus: Who Should Be The 2024 NFL Offensive Player Of The Year?

Kevin Cole

·

January 9, 2025

 

I (re)introduced my favored methodology for measuring player value two years ago, and then applied it to all the non-quarterbacks in the NFL the last two season. Tyreek Hill was the most valuable offensive non-quarterback in my 2022 and 2023 seasonal

Read full story

The plots below give the coefficient for each measurement or drill denominated by standard deviation within the position group. The draft positions and Plus/Minus for position groups are translated to percentile, giving both the same scale. Each bar below represents the amount of percentile movement you’d expect for a player with one standard deviation above or below the positional average.

The sample for this analysis covers all players who participated in all drills or all but one drill from 2006 to 2021, giving them a full four years to accumulate NFL value during their rookie contracts. For players who missed a drill, the value was estimated through a regression on the remaining variables, with a discount applied to the result because of an assumption that the drill was purposely skipped with an expectation of underperformance.

Below each plot, I’ve included a table with the top-20 projections for positional Plus/Minus (first four seasons) in the 2006 to 2024 period, including the players’ combine marks and their actual Plus/Minus produced.

INTERIOR DEFENDER

 

 

Interior defender begin a theme you’ll see across the defensive line: being bigger (specifically heavier) drives draft value but not NFL value. There’s always the risk that these models are overfitting to a few productive players (See J.J. Watt below), but I think we can still take a lot from looking back at the past, with a potential bias towards drafting bigger defensive tackles with higher floors earlier than their ceilings justify. If you’re spending a lot of draft capital on a prospect in the first couple rounds, you want to focus not only on floor but, more importantly, ceiling, which comes from the smaller interior defenders who can more effectively rush the passer.

Weight-adjusted three-cone times jump out as a huge indicator of NFL success, and somewhat surprisingly a lower weight. Like all defensive players, interior defensive linemen have dual responsibilities against the pass and run, but those roles have very different profiles at the positions.

When you look Plus/Minus against the run and pass as target values separately, three-cone is significant for both, but above-average size is linked with run defense. In the modern NFL interior defenders have become increasingly important in rushing the passer, and that’s why the overall Plus/Minus correlation points to smaller, faster players for the best NFL value.

J.J. Watt was one of the most productive non-quarterbacks in recent memory by points added at over 200 his first four years, which translates to around one-and-a-half wins added per season. In addition to Watt, the top-20 includes another all-time elite rusher from the interior Aaron Donald, plus successes like and Fletcher Cox and Ed Oliver.

 

EDGE RUSHER

 

 

It’s speed, speed and more speed when looking at what drives capital spent on edge rushers in the actual NFL draft, though it looks a bit overvalued in terms of NFL value added.

I don’t want to undersell how important athleticism is for edge rushers: there are hugely significant correlations between weight-adjusted speed, explosion (mostly vertical) and agility and NFL value, even when only looking at a subset of combine invitees who are all incredibly athletic versus the general population of college players. It’s just that NFL teams are extremely aware of how important athleticism is for edge rushers, perhaps even weighing it too heavily in their draft decisions, especially versus production metrics and other advanced stats that have been developed in recent years.

Like we saw for interior defenders, a lower weight is correlated with NFL value, but to a lesser degree. That said, there are probably diminishing returns the lower weight gets, meaning a linear model will project abnormally small edge defenders too well.

The 10-yard dash time is relatively important and not as valued in the draft, and the vertical jump has the most signal of an drill. By the anecdotal sample of stories I’ve heard, the 10-yard split has probably been nearly fully incorporated as more important than the forty at this point, but historical data goes back to when it was underappreciated.

Von Miller, Khalil Mack, Frank Clark, Bruce Irvin and Montez Sweat all show up in the top-20 historical Plus/Minus projections, with smaller sizes and strong drill performances across the board.

 

OFF-BALL LINEBACKER

 

 

Linebacker has the one of the weakest signal for NFL value from combine drills and measurements, but they do play an outsized role in determining draft position. I wouldn’t recommend fading athleticism at the position, but perhaps don’t greatly adjust your big board after surprising results. The biggest takeaway is probably to fade the combine for linebackers. What you’ll see for all the positions that derive most of their NFL value in coverage (off-ball linebackers, safeties and cornerbacks), is that you can’t measure that skill simply by picking the best athletes.

There’s something more skillful and cerebral (or maybe instinctual) that goes into homing the craft of being a top-notch coverage player that doesn’t seem to apply as much to rushing the passer. It’s also important to remember that this analysis is only applied to a slice of hyper-athletes who are invited to the NFL combine, which is already chosen from a slice of hyper-athletes within the general population. Athleticism is extremely important for success as a coverage player in the NFL, it’s just not necessarily relatively important in the tiny cohort of draft prospects.

Many of the most productive early career linebackers according to NFL plus minus, like the top-two Luke Kuechly (+82.4 points) and NaVorro Bowman (+72.3), were quite athletic. At the same time, the NFL draft is littered with linebackers who ran in the 4.4s and then didn’t pan out in the NFL. Linebacker is increasingly about pass coverage for value, which is a combination of sheer athleticism and skill/senses, lowered the value of the former.

I wouldn’t read too much into the top-20 list below, as the combine measurements and drills have such little effect.

 

SAFETY

 

 

I wasn’t surprised to see little signal for safeties from combine measurements and drills, but digging into the run/pass split illuminates things. If you only look at the effect on run value, size and speed matter, while coverage is more difficult to pin down, beyond the short shuttle’s significance.

Bigger safeties are more likely to be at least a moderate producer in the NFL as run defenders, but won’t necessarily hit the higher-end coverage outcomes needed to be a top producer at the position. The combination of the difficult projecting coverage value into the NFL and the position’s availability in free agency makes in risky to spend a high pick on a safety prospect.

 

CORNERBACK

 

 

There isn’t a lot to get from the combine for cornerback, and it looks like the measurements and drills are mostly overrated. It’s not that athleticism doesn’t matter at the position, but that so many cornerbacks are elite athletes - often the best athletes on the team - that the differences in performance go beyond what can be measured. Cornerback value is almost completely about coverage, where instincts, study and scheme fit make the biggest differences.

I’m not including a historical top-20 table at the position as most of the measurements and drills have slightly negative correlations to NFL value.

 

 

 

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[firefox1234]

 

[firefox1234]

 

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by firefox1234

[firefox1234]

 

Edited 1 hour ago by firefox1234

[firefox1234]

43 minutes ago, firefox1234 said:

Insightful thread. Seems like athletic testing hasn’t been much of a predictor as I thought it was.

 

[mrcompletely11]

29 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

RAS all day!!!

You could almost perfectly predict pur picks just based off of highest RAS on the board. We weren't drafting for a football team, we were trying to build a track and field squad.

I almost included morgan in that group but he seemed to focus on college production over RAS in the 25 draft.  We shall see in april but if we get that kid from Auburn at 19 its back where we started

[firefox1234]

 

[SmokinwithWilly]

30 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Surprised to see the 40 as the strongest predictor by a hair but not surprised to see it as the metric that gets guys overdrafted the most. Not surprised to see shuttle and 10 second split as strong predictors. I've always thought those were undervalued. I am surprised to see the three cone as basically just a nonfactor. It's one I've always valued but the data doesn't bear it out. Maybe just drop it or find some other test that might provide better insight. That one just doesn't seem to matter at all so why bother?

 

Explosiveness, quick feet/agility, and short yardage speed. Makes total sense. Top end 40 speed is great but not used often in games realistically. How many 30-40 yards straight line plays are there per game? I understand where overall speed matters, but it's overvalued if the footwork and explosiveness are lacking. Straight line speed guys usually don't have long careers. Most offenses live in the 5-15 yard area which is what the drills reflect. 

[Jon Snow]

5 minutes ago, SmokinwithWilly said:

Explosiveness, quick feet/agility, and short yardage speed. Makes total sense. Top end 40 speed is great but not used often in games realistically. How many 30-40 yards straight line plays are there per game? I understand where overall speed matters, but it's overvalued if the footwork and explosiveness are lacking. Straight line speed guys usually don't have long careers. Most offenses live in the 5-15 yard area which is what the drills reflect. 

This is the correct answer.  99% of the game is played within 20 yards from the line of scrimmage. Defenses are just too good to allow long developing plays at this level. Short area quickness is more important than straight line speed. 

[LinvilleGorge]

43 minutes ago, firefox1234 said:

I reluctantly accept that we will have to go Bain Jr as BPA at #19.

I don't think 31" arms are gonna hurt him. Maybe he only goes top 10 instead of top 5. He would've had to show up arms amputated to be available at 19. LOL

[firefox1234]

 

[LinvilleGorge]

23 minutes ago, firefox1234 said:

 

I like that we're actually showing interest in a true FS type of safety, but Bud Clark is the mid-round safety I'm really keeping an eye on.

[XClown1986]

Caleb Banks is a massive human being. Nearly 86 inch wingspan? Good Lord.

[firefox1234]

1 minute ago, XClown1986 said:

Caleb Banks is a massive human being. Nearly 86 inch wingspan? Good Lord.

I can’t help but imagine him next to Brown. Makes me think of the hogmolly Star/Short days.