Winners and Losers of the NFL Combine: Defensive Backs & Tight Ends

Applying modeling based on 15-plus years of combine data to the 2025 NFL draft class

Darien Porter was a big winner at the 2025 NFL Combine

Earlier this week, I released the results of my updated historical modeling for offensive and defensive positions on the NFL Scouting Combine since 2006, which quantified the effects on NFL value (according to my Plus/Minus metric) and draft position for all measurements and drills. I looked at the first-day participants in combine drills yesterday (defensive line and linebackers).

In this analysis, I’m going to apply those value models to the second-day participants at the 2025 NFL Combine: defensive backs and tight ends. Below, I’ll show an updated illustrations for the model results, i.e. the attribute effects of each drill and measurement on early-career Plus/Minus (first four seasons) and NFL draft position.

I’ll then give a table with all the combine participants at each position, and their percentile scores according to the model for draft value and actual NFL value. This will help separate how combine performances will be viewed by NFL teams and how they could project to actual NFL value, very often different things entirely. Prospects with low draft scores but high NFL value scores could be relative discounts in the draft.

CORNERBACKS

The combine results will move draft position for almost all drills, with teams preferring bigger, faster and quicker players (I know, shocking for the NFL).

The correlations between drills and actually NFL value (Plus/Minus) is negligible. This doesn’t mean that athleticism doesn’t matter at the position as much as the cornerbacks who proved themselves through their play in college and on-tape skills likely have at least met the threshold for NFL athleticism. Later round picks more often can sneak into the draft based on combine results, and then are more likely to fail.

The media focuses a lot on speed, but the agility drills (three cone and shuttle) and pure size (mostly arm length) can be even more important. Only a handful of the 2025 class ran the agility drills. Hopefully we’ll get more complete results through pro days.

The 2025 combine class of cornerbacks is ranked by the percentile of draft effect, meaning how much their results are likely to push up draft position. As you can see from the plot above, the “NFL Value” projections are tiny when using only measurables.

Potential No. 1 pick Travis Hunter didn’t participate in the drills, but PFF’s CB2 Jahdae Barron did, with decent results. Barron ran very fast and was explosive in the jumps. However, he measured one of the shortest arm lengths in the class, and he didn’t participate in the agility drills that can have larger effects on draft position.

Darien Porter had the best combine according to “Draft” position effect, hitting the 100th percentile. Porter was big enough at 195 pounds, his arm length was at the 95th percentile and his weight-adjusted sprint and agility times were the best in the class. Although it didn’t enter into the model, Porter is also quite tall at 6’3”. He wasn’t seen as a top-tier cornerback prospect in the class coming into the combine, but Porter could have elevated his status as a solid early Day-2 pick. PFF currently has Porter as their CB6, 54th overall.

SAFETIES