A Way to LOOK AT MEASURABLES...

Just an interesting look on players in the draft. This is a cool way to think about the explosiveness and importance of measurables in the draft. If you look at these same statistics for some of your favorite players they had pretty high numbers on Kirwan's list when they came out.

http://www.nfl.com/draft/story/9326200

I don't know why he includes the broad jump. Without being weighted, these numbers are insignificant compared to the bench press and vertical jump because, using his metrics, the differences are so small.

Actually, the difference between a 10' broad jump to an 8' broad jump is more telling in regards to athleticism than the difference between a 40" vertical and 36" vertical. But using Kirwan's model, the difference in the vertical would have twice the impact on the results. Not a lot of math majors on NFL.com, though.

Lucky said:

I don't know why he includes the broad jump. Without being weighted, these numbers are insignificant compared to the bench press and vertical jump because, using his metrics, the differences are so small.

Actually, the difference between a 10' broad jump to an 8' broad jump is more telling in regards to athleticism than the difference between a 40" vertical and 36" vertical. But using Kirwan's model, the difference in the vertical would have twice the impact on the results. Not a lot of math majors on NFL.com, though.

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I dont think so, especially in positions along the line. The vertical jump shows your explosiveness up and down and the broad jump shows lateral forward explosiveness, which is very important for offensive and defensive lineman coming forward out of a three or four point stance.

Thanks for the article link. Yet another reason for the Mario advocates to say that maybe he would be worth the 1 pick:

This year, we have a number of players who crossed the 70 mark and we have the rare few that have crossed the 80 mark. Believe me, not many NFL draft-eligible players ever get an 80-plus score. Here's a look at the top guys in this year's draft that have the combination of strength, power, explosiveness and agility to excel. Mario Williams, the top defensive end in the draft class, is off the charts when it comes to this combo score and has one of the highest scores I have ever seen.

NAME POS. VERTICAL BROAD BENCH TOTAL
Mario Williams DE 40.5 10.0 35 85.5

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I would be interested in seeing Kirwin's chart of all his 80s from previous drafts. I guess you could figure that out on your own, but there is no real point in it.

It is also an illustration of how key draft preparation really can make a big difference in where a player is drafted. Though there are people who have inate strength, being coached and training to do a particular activity really can make a big difference in a short period of time.

As an aside, I think about 75% of the guys in the gym should step away from doing bench presses for a while. There is such a focus in getting bench press numbers up that some folks start looking like hunchbacks because they overtrain bench press.

Texans_Chick said:

As an aside, I think about 75% of the guys in the gym should step away from doing bench presses for a while. There is such a focus in getting bench press numbers up that some folks start looking like hunchbacks because they overtrain bench press.

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Not sure if it is the case in football, but in basketball there were workout warriors everywhere. Big strong ripped dudes that just did not play strong on the court.

We always had our guys working on upping there reps rather than trying to max out. We trained for burst rather than overall speed in a finite distance, etc.

I would be intersted to here from the football guys what their take is on weight training and conditioning.

Trunk strength and lower body strength are much more important to football players than anything else. I don’t put much stock in Bench press totals when I look at some of these guys as prospects. Sometimes big bench pressers do not have as much functional strength and sometimes some guys just can't pound out big rep numbers, but it doesn't mean they are weak. Football players really don’t do that much benching but it is one way to identify athletes that test out of the norm. Be it high or low.