Scouting Combine drills that matter for NFL success: RB, WR, TE and OL

Looking back at 15-plus years of combine results to sort out what drills and measurements are most correlated with offensive NFL success

This is my updated version of a prior analysis, adding more data in the form of historical prospects aging into relevance, plus an expanded sample of combine participants from prior years. I also dig a little more into the why there’s a lack of correlation between athleticism and NFL value, specific for players who derive much of latter through coverage.

The degree of importance of NFL Combine drills and measurements depends on what you’re looking to predict: draft position or actual player value. The former is known for all historical draft picks; the latter more estimation and shared understanding. I’ve attempt to push forward our understanding of non-quarterback player value with the NFL Plus/Minus metric, a universal, points-based measure.

(Re)Introducing NFL Plus/Minus, a Superior Player Valuation Metric

The relationship between draft position and NFL value is fairly strong, but contrasting the two gives additional insight into systemic errors in over/underweighting certain traits and how teams can more productively harness information gathered at the combine.

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.

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.

RUNNING BACK

Generally, athletic testing has a much bigger effect on draft position for running backs than NFL value in the form of Plus/Minus. In fact, weight and speed weaker correlations to NFL value, but huge effects on draft position.

However, running back prospect three-cone times have nearly the same correlation for actual value as draft position, making it the most important drill for teams to pay attention to for a relative advantage on the field. The three-cone drill has gained in importance over time, likely due to the increasing importance of receiving for running-back NFL value.

Some of the most successful early career running backs in the sample fall onto the list of top combine performances. Christian McCaffrey, Chris Johnson, Le’Veon Bell and David Johnson were seen as being at the top of NFL among running backs shortly after entering the league. You can see how the three-cone drill drives the top-20 results, with none of the running backs posting times over seven seconds. Johnson didn’t test at the drill, but I’m guessing he would have posted a strong time.

WIDE RECEIVER