Today I wanted to look at the data from Kent Lee Platt’s Relative Athletic Scores (RAS) for the offensive guards. Here is a link to his website in case you haven’t seen his work https://ras.football/. To qualify for a RAS score, a player must have a total of six recorded metrics from any of the following: Height, Weight, Forty-yard dash, Twenty-yard split, Ten-yard split, Bench Press, Vertical Jump, Broad Jump, Short Shuttle, and 3-Cone. The player is then graded on each in comparison to the positional database since 1987 to get more of a feel of their size, speed, explosion, agility, and total value, giving context to the raw numbers.
The goal of the series is to provide the RAS from Platt, with a bit of my own twist with a size score and visualize it to get a simultaneous view of all the players at their position that participated at the combine. Here are the players that qualified (NOTE: Positions are grouped from the combine results tracker compiled by Dave Bryan and Alex Kozora):
Five of the qualifying players have a RAS above nine, starting with Chattanooga guard Cole Strange who has an excellent RAS with elite speed and agility, great explosion, and good size. Boston College guard Zion Johnson has elite explosion and agility, good speed, and poor size. North Carolina State guard Ikem Ekwonu has elite speed, great explosion, and good size and agility. Tulsa guard Chris Paul has elite speed and good size, explosion, and agility. LSU guard Chasen Hines has great speed and explosion and okay size.
The next four players have a RAS above eight, with Memphis guard Dylan Parham atop this group with elite speed, good explosion and agility, but poor size. Georgia guard Justin Shaffer has great speed, good size, and okay explosion. North Carolina guard Joshua Ezeudu has good size, speed, explosion, and agility. Southern University guard Ja’Tyre Carter has great speed and explosion along with okay size and agility.
Three players have an RAS above seven, with North Carolina guard Marcus McKethan having elite size, good explosion, okay speed, but poor agility. UTSA guard Spencer Burford has good speed and explosion and okay size. LSU guard Ed Ingram has elite speed, good agility, but poor size and explosion.
Here are the two players with a RAS above six. Virginia Tech guard Lecitus Smith has good speed along with okay size and agility. North Dakota State guard Cordell Volson has great size, good speed, okay explosion, but very poor agility.
The following are the remaining players with a RAS above five. Oklahoma guard Marquis Hayes has good size, okay speed, but poor explosion and agility. Texas A&M guard Kenyon Green has good size and speed along with okay explosion. Kentucky guard Darian Kinnard has great size, okay speed, but poor explosion and agility.
Two players had a RAS below five, starting with San Diego State guard Bill Dunkle who has great size but poor speed, explosion, and agility. The final qualifying player is Oklahoma guard Tyrese Robinson who has good speed, okay size, but poor explosion and very poor agility.
The data shows the above average athleticism of the position in this day in age, with 89% of the qualifying players with a RAS above five! It will also be interesting to see where players end up playing in the NFL, since moves along the o-line are fairly common from college to the pros.
Next, I wanted to provide context with a size score using the RAS for the players height and weight, which includes all the combine invites since all the players are measured:
There are also an extremely high percentage (90%) of players that have a size score above five, encouraging and important context after the athleticism view, so I’ll discuss some. The only player with an above nine size score though is McKethan along with a 7.79 RAS!
Three players have above eight size scores, starting with Kinnard whose RAS was just above average and has okay speed, but poor explosion and agility. Dunkle was one of two players with a below average RAS and important to remember he has poor speed, explosion, and agility. Volson also has a RAS above six, adding the most value from this group along with his size.
The above seven size scores begin with Hayes and important to recall his okay speed, but poor explosion and agility. Ole Miss guard Ben Brown has the sixth ranked size score and was the only player that didn’t test otherwise at the combine. Green provides some value in this group, recalling his good speed along with okay explosion. Paul had the fourth ranked RAS along with his above seven score!
Johnson and Strange had the top two ranks in RAS along with their above 6.5 size scores, offering strong overall value!
To wrap up, here is a visual layering the RAS and size score:
The graph highlights McKethan offering intriguing size with an above average RAS, along with Paul, Johnson, and Strange offering the best size of the more athletic players. We can also see a great percentage of athletic players on the bottom right, but lacking size comparatively. The players further on the left generally have the desired size but lack in athleticism, cuing NFL teams to pick their flavor and scheme fit in a weaker class overall.
What are your thoughts on the data? Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts in the comments!
