Today I wanted to look at the data from Kent Lee Platt’s Relative Athletic Scores (RAS) for the cornerbacks. 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):
The high number of players with RAS scores above nine highlight more athletic players in this day in age. First up is Sam Houston State cornerback Zyon McCollum who has elite size, speed, explosion, and agility for perfect RAS of 10! Penn State cornerback Tariq Castro-Fields has elite speed, great size and explosion, and good agility. Pittsburgh cornerback Damarri Mathis has elite explosion, great speed, and good size. UTSA cornerback Tariq Woolen has elite size, speed, and explosion but poor agility. Washington cornerback Kyler Gordon has elite explosion and agility, with good size and speed. USC cornerback Isaac Taylor-Stuart has elite speed, great agility, with good size and explosion. Missouri cornerback Akayleb Evans has great size with good speed, explosion, and agility. Texas cornerback Josh Thompson has great speed and explosion with good size and agility. Washington cornerback Trent McDuffie has great speed and explosion with okay size. LSU cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. has good size, speed, and explosion off his recent pro day. Washington State cornerback Jaylen Watson has elite explosion, great size, good speed, but poor agility. Tennessee cornerback Alontae Taylor is the final player of this group and has elite speed, great size, good explosion, and okay agility.
Four players have an RAS above eight, starting with Arizona State cornerback Chase Lucas who has elite explosion, great agility, good speed, and okay size. Florida cornerback Kaiir Elam has great speed, good size, and okay agility. Mississippi cornerback Martin (MJ) Emerson has elite size, good speed and agility, and okay explosion. Nebraska cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt has great speed, good size and agility, but poor explosion.
There were five players with above seven RAS scores, and LSU cornerback Cordale Flott tops this group with great speed and okay size and explosion. Texas Tech cornerback DaMarcus Fields has good size and speed along with okay explosion and agility. After a drop off, Michigan cornerback Vincent Gray has great size with okay speed and explosion. Alabama cornerback Jalyn Armour-Davis has great size and speed but poor explosion and very poor agility. USC cornerback Chris Steele has great explosion, good size and speed, but very poor agility.
The following two players have an above six RAS. Arizona State cornerback Jack Jones has good speed, explosion, and agility but poor size. Baylor cornerback Kalon Barnes has elite speed and explosion, okay size, but very poor agility.
Three players have a RAS above five, beginning with Cincinnati cornerback Coby Bryant who has great size, okay speed and explosion, but very poor agility. Auburn cornerback Roger McCreary has good speed, okay size and agility, but very poor explosion. South Carolina State cornerback Decobie (Cobie) Durant has elite speed, okay explosion, but poor agility and very poor size.
The data shows strong athleticism in the class with only five players below a five RAS! The first is Clemson cornerback Mario Goodrich at a 4.99 RAS and has good speed, okay size, but poor explosion. Arkansas cornerback Montaric Brown has a low four RAS, great size, okay speed and explosion, but very poor agility. Virginia Tech cornerback Jermaine Waller has a RAS in the three range, okay size and explosion, but poor speed and agility. Oregon cornerback Mykael Wright has a RAS in the twos, good agility, okay speed, but very poor size. The final player is Georgia cornerback Derion Kendrick who has good size, but very poor speed, explosion, and a very low 1.51 RAS!
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:
Here we can see great context following the athleticism view, with more players with a below five size score and only three players topping a nine score. Woolen leads the pack along with his impressive high nine RAS that ranks fourth! Emerson is in the lower nine size score range, pairing good value with his mid-eight RAS. McCollum also has a size score in this range that pairs with his perfect RAS score!
A strong total of eight players have a size score above eight, starting with Watson who also has a low nine RAS! Evans matches his size score with an even more impressive mid-nine RAS! Gray has a mid-eight size score with a low seven RAS. Castro-Fields’ above eight size scores pairs with his second ranked RAS in the high nines! Armour-Davis tied his size score along with a low seven RAS and important to remember his poor explosion and very poor agility. Taylor has a size score in the low eights and an above nine RAS! Bryant’s low eight size score pairs with a mid-five RAS, and important to recall his very poor agility. Brown is the final player of this group but important to remember his RAS in the fours, also with very poor agility.
Five players have size scores above seven, beginning with Steele who pairs a low seven RAS to this mark and is another player with very poor agility. Cincinnati cornerback Ahmad (Sauce) Gardner has a size score in the high sevens but didn’t test fully. Elam’s size score pairs with a mid-eight RAS with good overall value. Clemson cornerback Andrew Booth has a mid-seven size score but didn’t test fully. Kendrick is the final player of this group but important to remember his bottom ranked RAS and very poor speed and explosion!
The following seven players have a size score above six. Taylor-Stuart fares better as an athlete with his above nine RAS. Gordon matches his results very similarly with a lower size score but ranks fifth in RAS which is one spot higher. Thompson ties Gordon’s size score along with his mid-nine RAS. Stingley Jr. also has an above nine RAS and is tied with Fields in size score, the latter having less athleticism with a high seven RAS. Mathis also fits the pattern of an athletic player with less size, having the third ranked RAS. After a drop off, the final player of this group is Taylor-Britt who pairs this result with an above eight RAS but important to recall his poor explosion.
Only three players have a size score above five, starting with McCreary who also has a RAS score in the fives and important to remember his very poor agility! McDuffie has the athleticism with a +9 RAS in this smaller size group, along with Lucas at a slightly lesser extent with his high eight RAS.
The remaining players have size scores below five, and we can see them clearly in this visual layering all the qualifying players RAS and size scores to wrap up:
The clump of players on the top right highlights the points made through the article, with several players at the position offering the athleticism and size that most teams look for. McCollum and Woolen highlight the group along with 12 other players above the mean in both data points!
While we have numbers for most of the players that received combine invites, it would have been nice to get full workouts from Gardner, Booth, and Jobe.
What are your thoughts on the data? Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts in the comments!
