NFL News NFL News, Reports and Updates 
The 2023 draft class of edge rushers is good. Damn good. From Will Anderson Jr. to Tyree Wilson to Lukas Van Ness to Andre Carter II to Myles Murphy and a myriad of other top talents, it’s a collection of outside pass rushers with a varying array of power, pass-rushing moves, burst, bend, and closing speed.
We could see as many as seven edge rushers in Round 1, and probably five or more will go before the end of Day 2. For real.
For more extensive draft content, check out our latest prospect rankings and mock drafts, as well as our new weekly podcast, “With the First Pick”, featuring former Vikings general manager Rick Spielman. (Check out the latest episode below.)
The combine has a drill — the three-cone — that strongly correlates with NFL success at the edge-rusher position. Probably because it’s a drill that explicitly measures a prospect’s ability to tightly bend the corner and accelerate around it. Very translatable to what edge rushers are asked to do on many of their rushes to the quarterback on passing plays.
The 7.00-second threshold has forever been the gold-standard in three-cone times for edge defenders. If you’re under that time, you’re good. If you’re not, red flag. And, sure, we all collectively realized there should be more leeway with that time for a heavier prospect.
Well, back at the outset of the pandemic, I spent some time adding more context to that prestigious 7.00 threshold for edge rushers because I realized we needed to go deeper than just adjusting how quick an edge rusher’s three-cone time was strictly based on weight. Height had to be considered, too, because 6-foot-2 and 260 pounds is anatomically much different than 6-5, 260.
So I got to work, mapping out the heights, weights, and three-cone times for edge rushers over the past 10 years at the combine in a scatter chart and used Excel to draw a best-fit line based on the figures. That…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/news/nfl-combine-2023-drills-how-three-cone-times-for-edge-rushers-have-indicated-future-success-over-past-decade/
Author : Chris Trapasso
Publish date : 2023-02-23 14:43:49
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
