Review of Explosiveness for NFL Draft 2021 Prospects

BOOM!

One of my favorite books from my Sports Management Worldwide (SMWW) NFL GM and Scouting course was "Take Your Eye off the Ball 2.0" by Pat Kirwan.  For those of you who might not know Pat, his resume is impressive. Prior to embarking on a successful career as a football journalist, he worked in coaching and front office management at all levels, working his way up to Director of Player Administration for the NY Jets.  His book is a vital teaching tool for anyone who scouts for a hobby or is looking for a career in this vocation.

Explosiveness

In his book, Pat gives the formula for desirable player explosiveness based on Combine numbers:

Bench Press Reps + Vertical Jump (Inches) +Broad Jump (Feet) > 70

This formula was designed to identify explosiveness for players in the defensive front seven and offensive line.  His track record in using this method has been pretty successful in his experience.  For the purposed of monitoring this metric, I'll call it the Kirwan Explosiveness Number and refer to it as "KEN". 

Who rose to the occasion during Pro Days this year?

Offensive Line/Defensive Front Seven

• BMI Pos Z represents the Z score for the position group for the qualifiers listed here only.  Small sample so take it for what it's worth.
• These are all the players who exceeded the KEN threshold of 70 this draft cycle; if you don't see a player's name he likely fell short.

• Green highlights note exceptional numbers
• Milton Williams of LA Tech won the Pro Day competition with a total KEN of 83.1 fueled by stand out performances in Vertical and Broad jumps for the DL group.
• Kwity Paye of Michigan had an impressive showing on the bench with 36 reps while Penn State's Jayson Oweh and Joseph Ossai of Texas showed out in the jumping evaluations. 
• Jamin Davis of Kentucky had the best broad jump of the top KEN Linebackers.

• Yellow highlights reflect numbers that are out of pattern with the group on the downside.
• Oweh and his teammate Shaka Toney join Williams as having lower than average BMI relative to their position groups (based on the KEN finishers here, only).
• Williams, Ossai and Davis all performed below their peers in the bench while Sooner Creed Humphrey holds the bottom spot of all OL qualifiers.
• I'm no scientist, but all four of the above also have below average BMI.
• Stanford's Drew Dalman trailed his peer group in the broad jump having the lowest measure for that metric of all KEN qualifiers.

• While Williams has the highest total KEN score, Paye has a 5.7 point lead over the #2 at his position (Williams' lead is only 1.3 points and there is one more competitor right next to him).  
• The OL-T position is most consistent in terms of KEN with just a 3.8 point variance between the top and bottom.  
• Big Boy shout out to Trojan Alijah Vera-Tucker who led his peer group with the largest BMI of all KEN qualifiers regardless of position.

If you are like me, you've found a couple of new, interesting names here for further consideration. 

Non-OL/Front Seven Players

Although Kirwan only considers this metric for the OL/Front Seven, we can figure out the weight of the bench component for qualifiers for the overall KEN metric for 2021 results, and strip it out to leave just the jumping components.  To ensure we get the best performers, I've settled on a Vertical plus Broad threshold of 47 for non-Front Seven players (which is around 10% higher than the raw number I calculated when stripping out bench).  

*This is just for illustrative purposes; I'm not equating this in any way to Kirwan's work.

Total = Vertical plus Broad jumps.

Bench Exp = Total plus Bench

• Although Total greater than 47 qualifies for the list, the highlighted metrics reflect players whose KEN exceeds 70.

It will be interesting to see how the qualifying players are drafted and perform. 

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