(Updated) I created a new way to score player combine performances
Hi all,
I recieved some critisims on my previous scoring system for grading prospect combine performances and went back to the drawing board to try and fix these issues. Here are the changes from the previous model:
Reduced penelty for not performing drills: The previous model gave prospects a 0 for not participating in a combine drill. This has been adjusted to a 40. Since we are grading by percintiles this will cause them to appear below average in a drill vs appearing historically bad.
Drills weighted by position: Some drills matter more for certain positions than others. For example the bench press isn't as important to a WR as it is for an OL. Weighing drills allows the final score to better reflect what actually matters for their specific position.
Weight difference penelty: When creating the score, we check if their listed college weight is significantly different than their combine weight. If they weight in 5% less than their listed college weight, their 40, 3 cone, and 20 yard shuttle all have a minor reduction of 2. I tried to make this so it would only affect big weight changes vs guys dropping a few pounds in water weight.
Size bonus: players that are tall and weigh a lot recieve a small bonus to 10 yard split, 40 yard dash, broad jump, and vertical. This is because I believe doing these drills at a high level at a huge size is much more impressive and should be rewarded.
Percentile Bonus: Because of the way percentiles work, extremely outliers tend to score similar to great combine performances. To counteract this, a player in the 100th and 99th percentiles recieve a bonus 6 points, players between 98th and 97th recieve a bonus of 4 points, and players in the 96th and 95th recieve a bonus of 2 points to their 10 yard split, 40 yard dash, broad jump, and vertica jump scores.
To keep sample sizes larger, we are now comparing their combine performance against all prospects I have in my database rather than fitlering it down to only active NFL players. I started my project in 2023, so it includes almost everyone who was active in the NFL around that time to now. This means that some pretty important players like Calvin Johnson are not included.
A flaw I think my scoring system currently has is that the middle of the pack can get very crowded. This causes it to not be good at showing the little differences between average prospects. Another flaw is that I'm using MockDraftable as a source for my combine information. MockDraftable tends to use combine, but there are a few players where some pro-day drills have been entered. Since I'm only trying to grade combines, I don't want pro day results in my dataset but I believe these should only minimially be affecting scores since according to the owner it is rare for them to enter Pro day data.
A prospects final ACT (Athlete Combine Testing) score is a composite of each of their individual drill scores, adjusted to a 100-0 scale for better readability.
With these adjustments, the new top ACT scores for the 2026 draft class are:
Sonny Styles - 100
Bryce Lance, Taylen Green, and Jeff Caldwell - 99
Caleb Banks - 98
Kenyon Sadiq, Adam Randall, and Deion Burks - 97
Dani Dennis-Sutton - 96
Sam Roush, DeMonte Capehart - 95
Monroe Freeling, Lorenzo Styles Jr., Eli Stowers, John Michael Gyllenborg, Haynes King and Micah Morris - 94
Blake Miller, Malachi Lawrence, and Chris Johnson - 93
Chase Bisontis and Charles Demmings - 92
Treydan Stukes, Malik Muhammad, and Skyler Bell - 91
Mike Washington Jr., Kyle Louis, Jack Kelly, J. Michael Studivant, and Robert Spears-Jennings - 90
As always, I welcome all feedback and will try to answer any questions anyone might have!