Today I wanted to look at the data from Kent Lee Platt’s Relative Athletic Scores (RAS) for the linebackers. 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):
Right away we can the athleticism at the position with 24 of the 26 qualifying players comfortably above a five RAS and 15 of those players with a score above nine! First up is Montana State linebacker Troy Andersen who has elite speed, explosion, and agility along with great size and a perfect 10 RAS! Wisconsin linebacker Leo Chenal had a near perfect score as well, with elite speed and explosion along with great size and agility! Penn State linebacker Brandon Smith follows close behind to complete the top three with elite size, speed, explosion and agility but lacks strength comparatively. LSU linebacker Damone Clark has elite speed and explosion along with good size. Wyoming linebacker Chad Muma has elite explosion with good size, speed, and agility. Ole Miss linebacker Chance Campbell has elite speed and explosion with good size and agility. Linebacker Channing Tindall has elite speed and explosion, good agility, and okay size. Fellow Georgia linebacker Quay Walker has elite speed, great size, with good explosion and agility. Cincinnati linebacker Darrian Beavers has elite agility, great explosion, with good size and speed. Utah linebacker has great explosion along with good size and speed.
Continuing with the lower nine RAS scores, we see Indiana linebacker Micah McFadden who has elite speed and agility along with good size and explosion. Oklahoma State linebacker Malcolm Rodriguez has elite speed, great explosion and agility, but poor size. Clemson linebacker Baylon Spector has elite agility, great speed and explosion, and okay size. Iowa State linebacker Mike Rose has elite size, great agility, and good speed and explosion. The final player with an above nine RAS is Alabama linebacker Christian Harris, who has elite speed, great explosion, but poor size.
Three players have an above eight RAS, starting with Oklahoma linebacker Brian Asamoah II who has elite speed, great explosion, but very poor size. Baylor linebacker Terrel Bernard has elite speed, great explosion, good agility, but poor size. Appalachian State linebacker D’Marco Jackson has elite speed, good explosion and agility, but like the other players in this group has poor size.
After a drop off, we have four players with an above seven RAS. Texas A&M linebacker Aaron Hansford has good size and explosion with okay agility. Nebraska linebacker JoJo Domann has great speed, good explosion and agility, but poor size. The second qualifying Wisconsin linebacker is Jack Sanborn who has good speed and agility, with okay size and explosion. Utah also has a second qualifying linebacker, Nephi Sewell who has great speed, good explosion and agility, but very poor size.
Two players land in the six range, beginning with Colorado linebacker Nate Landman who has good size and explosion, okay agility, but poor speed. Boston College linebacker Isaiah Graham-Mobley has great speed and explosion, but poor size and very poor agility.
Two players have a below five RAS, highlighting below average results historically. The first is Auburn linebacker Zakoby McClain who has good speed, okay explosion, but very poor size and agility. Michigan linebacker Josh Ross has a very low 1.67 RAS and has okay speed, poor size, and very poor explosion and agility. We know the Steelers have shown interest with a pro day dinner meeting though, and information I’m compiling on Steelers RAS draft history shows that he would set a new precedent for the lowest RAS score at the position since 2010 if Pittsburgh were to select him!
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 see great context after the athleticism view, with more players having below five size scores and only two players above nine. Smith leads the position along with his high third ranked RAS! Rose was the other, pairing this result with a low nine RAS!
Three players have an above eight size score, starting with Chenal who pairs this with his near perfect and second ranked RAS! Andersen has the fourth ranked size score along with his perfect RAS! Walker is the final player of this group, and also has an above nine RAS that ranks eighth.
The following five players are the group with above seven size scores, beginning with Beavers who pairs this result with his mid-nine RAS. Muma has a mid-seven size score to go with his above nine RAS that ranks fifth. Clark pairs his size result with the fourth ranked RAS! Lloyd pairs his mid-nine RAS with his size result in the lower sevens. The final player of this group is Hansford, whose RAS was also in the seven range.
The group with above six size scores includes three players, starting with Landman who pairs his high-six score with the fourth lowest RAS in the low sixes and important to remember his poor speed. After a drop off to the low-six range, Campbell pairs this result with the sixth ranked RAS in the mid-nines. McFadden completes this group and pairs his low-six size score with an above nine size score as well.
Three players have size scores above five, and Sanborn tops this group along with an above seven RAS. Hansen is the next player of the group but didn’t work out fully. Tindall’s has a low-five size result and fares stronger athletically with a mid-nine RAS.
Spector’s has a size score in the high-fours to go along with his low-nine RAS. The following two players have low-four size scores, starting with Jackson who has a low-eight RAS. Graham-Mobley has the third lowest RAS in the low-six range along with his low-four size score and important to remember his very poor agility.
Close behind is Domann, the only player with a size score in the three range and pairs this result with a mid-seven RAS.
Ten players remain with size scores below three. Three of those players didn’t work out fully: North Carolina linebacker Jeremiah Gemmel, Georgia linebacker Nakobe Dean, and Arizona State linebacker Darien Butler who has a very low 0.71 size score! We can see the other seven linebackers clearly in this visual layering all the qualifying players RAS and size scores to wrap up:
The clump of players on the top right highlight the points made earlier in the article, with several players at the position offering the athleticism and size many teams look for. Smith, Andersen, and Chenal highlight the position group along with Rose, Walker, Beavers, Muma, Clark, and Lloyd offering the strongest blend of size and athleticism!
While we have numbers for most of the players that received combine invites, it would have been nice to get full workouts for those who didn’t, especially Dean.
What are your thoughts on the data? Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts in the comments!
