It’s combine week! Time for all of our favorite prospects to compete in the underwear olympics. If you talk to different people, you will get different answers on just how meaningful the combine is. NFL scouts look for traits and this helps them determine that on a comparable scale. Here are the biggest winners from this week in Indianapolis and how it effects your preparation for dynasty rookie drafts.
Throughout this article you will see a tool called the Relative Athletic Score. This is a wonderful tool created by Kent Lee Platte to provide an overall size adjusted athleticism score utilizing inputs from combine results. It runs on a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest. Give him a follow on Twitter @mathbomb.
Rumor has it Anthony Richardson can dribble a bowling ball, do a wheelie on a unicycle and start a fire with an ice cube. The reports coming out on Anthony Richardson are reaching mythical status in just a few days. He was without a doubt the consensus overall winner from the combine and for good reason. He was out there setting records for quarterback athleticism. He is simply an athletic unicorn.
Richardson achieved the maximum relative athletic score you can get with a 10.0 out of 10.0. His 40-yard the dash of 4.43, splits, vertical jump of 40.5”, broad jump of 10 feet 9 inches and height and weight all graded in the elite category for the quarterback position.
“Team executives are leaking through these insiders Anthony Richardson’s interviews have been the greatest interviews we’ve had in a long time”
So where does this leave us with Anthony Richardson for dynasty? The talent is tantalizing. The ceiling is Saturn. But he still is quite raw with inaccuracy issues and did not seem to elevate the Florida team. Let’s see where he goes in the NFL draft. For dynasty, he has vaulted himself into the top 4. He could be Josh Allen or he could be Jamarcus Russell. He needs the right situation to harness his insane ability.
Iosivas is a bit of an under-the-radar prospect but will certainly become more renowned with this combine performance. He comes from the Ivy League so his competition is certainly suspect. But he did show he was more than just an uber athlete while at Princeton.
To go with this he also posted an impressive 2.70 receiving yards per team pass attempt. Iosivas is someone I will be watching closely on draft day. I have him as a third-rounder right now after this combine performance. If that is the case he will be on my radar as a target in the third rounds of rookie drafts. This late in rookie drafts I like to target prospects with elite physical traits. If they can figure out how to use those traits you might have something.
Musgrave was one of my favorite tight-end sleepers before the combine. Unfortunately, this just woke everyone up. A 9.94 relative athletic score is ridiculously good. There is a significant correlation between athleticism and future success at the tight end position. 8 of the 11 tight ends with 2 or more top 5 fantasy finishes since 2007 had a RAS above 9.0. Musgrave should be a locked-in top-three tight end in dynasty rookie drafts now. Look for him to be selected by round two of the NFL draft.
Musgrave only played in two games for Oregon St. this year and was their leading receiver in both. He averaged 85 yards per game. Musgrave posted a ridiculous 3.31 receiving yards per team pass attempt in that tiny sample. Add a best-in-class Lance Zeirlein film grade of 6.7 and consider me all in on Musgrave.
Zeirlein waxes poetic about Musgrave in his scouting profile. “Has oily hips and feet.
Eludes coverage contact with smooth transitions of tempo. Routes gain momentum with burst-through turns to mismatch linebackers. Gets head around to track vertical throws without losing a step.”
His target area in dynasty rookie drafts will be in the late second or early third range.
I did not know much about Zach Kuntz before the combine. But the man is 6’7 with a 40-inch vertical. How do you stop a player like that in the red zone? He sat behind Pat Freiermuth for two years at Penn St before transferring to Old Dominion. A perfect 10.00 Relative Athletic Score is eye-opening.
Bryce Ford-Wheaton is another name not on a lot of radars before the combine. But now he may have surpassed Quentin Johnston as having the best size-speed combination in the class.
He is a traits guy who did not produce in college. As mentioned previously, these are the types you go after in the 4th or 5th rounds of rookie drafts with the hopes they figure it out.
Others like Washington more than myself but you can not deny his athleticism. He was used primarily as a blocker for Georgia and he was elite at that. He only had 45 receptions over three seasons at Georgia.
But he stands 6’6”, runs a 4.64 forty, and has a strong shuttle score. There is a high correlation between tight-end athleticism to future dynasty success as mentioned with Musgrave. He is an outstanding blocker which will help catapult his draft capital by the NFL. If you are interested in dynasty rookie drafts he should go late second round. But I prefer a player like Musgrave or Kincaid around the same time.
Charbonnet came into this process as the likely RB3 in dynasty rookie drafts. His combine performance should solidify that. Outside of Bijan Robinson, Charbonnet is the next best bet for a bell-cow role. He came in at 214 pounds which is solid, although some expected 220 plus. Grading at a 9.42 in his RAS puts him squarely in Round 2 conversation of the NFL draft and late round 1 for dynasty rookie drafts.
Shhh…. For some reason, not a lot of people are talking about Chase Brown.
Brown was only a three-star recruit with offers from programs like South Dakota and McNe e s e S t. He ended up at Western Michigan during his freshman year before transferring to Illinois. He continued to progress throughout his college career culminating in outstanding production in his final two years for Illinois. Brown ran for 1005 yards in 2021 and was 4th in the NCAA in rushing yards for 2022 with 1643 yards.
Now he posts an elite 9.62 relative athletic score with nice body density at 5’9 and 209 lbs to take the NFL pounding. You need to be in on Chase Brown in the late second to the mid third round of dynasty rookie drafts.
Mingo is yet another wide receiver who does not pass the checks analytics evaluators like to see. But he certainly has elite traits. Put him on your radar for the fourth or fifth round of rookie drafts.
Let’s close this out with what should have been everyone’s favorite wide receiver from the beginning of this cycle.
I thought for sure when I heard Jaxon Smith-Njigba was not going to run the 40 that he would be in the combine loser category. Then he comes out and does this.
JSN’s short-area quickness is truly elite.
This performance cements him as my clear WR1 in Dynasty in his own tier. Let us not forget that JSN out-produced the two best rookie wide receivers in the NFL this year (Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson). As far as rookie wide receivers safe high-end fantasy production does not get any easier to predict than Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
I hope you enjoyed reading my article. My goal is to provide actionable advice you can utilize to improve your dynasty team. You can follow me on Twitter @force_fantasy. #DFFArmy #FantasyFootball #AlwaysBeBuilding #NFL #NFLDraft #NFLTransactions #NFLTrades #AlwaysBeScouting
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