Inside The Data

With the NFL Draft approaching this month, I looked at the top prospects from all positions groups and measured their athleticism and production, using scatter charts to compare their profiles to other players at their position in this year’s draft, along with first-round picks from their position in the past four drafts, top-100 picks at their position from the past four drafts and all prospects drafted in the past four drafts.

In this series, we’ve done: EDGEs,  interior defensive line, off-ball linebackers,  cornerbacks, and safeties.

In this story, we’ll turn to the offensive side and start with running backs.

GETTY IMAGES: Boise State RB product Ashton Jeany leads all RBs in athletic performance and production.

You can hear my podcast version with Geoff Mosher on all""> Inside The Birds podcast platforms.

In each scatter chart, the colored horizontal line represents the average score of college production from the prospect position group. The intersecting vertical line represents the average score of athletic testing of the prospect position group.

This first scatter chart shows how the top prospects of this year’s RB class compare to the average of the first-round picks of the past four drafts.

Note that Boise State’s record-setter Ashton Jeanty is the only RB in the “blue chip” quadrant, with Arizona State’s Cam Skattebo the lone other RB to fall into the “safe” quadrant for those who are highly productive.

The next chart is the same as the first, but with Eagles RBs from the past four drafts added in for comparison and perspective.

In the next chart, purple lines reflect how this year’s top RB prospects compare to the average of the past top-100 picks over the past four years at RB, so basically any RB taken in the first three rounds.

The intersecting purple lines represent the average athleticism and production of RBs drafted in the top-1oo over the past four drafts.

Like we did before, we’ve now added the Eagles draft picks over the past four years into the same chart for comparison and perspective.

For the final charts, using red lines, we looked at how this year’s top RB prospects compare to the average of all RBs drafted over the past four years.

The intersecting red lines represent the average athleticism and production of all RBs drafted over the past four drafts.

And once again, we used the same chart and added in Eagles RB selections from the past four years.

Next up: We look at tight ends.

– Sam Finkel is a staff writer for InsideTheBirds.com whose focus is on analytics.