The Cleveland Browns and the rest of the league took in this year’s scouting combine, which was fascinating as always, providing all kinds of information for teams to digest between now and the NFL Draft.
Combining the athletic data that came out at the scouting combine with the production players have had in their careers as well as their age provides a complete prospect profile, at least by the numbers. And with that, the picture gets clearer on perhaps the prospects Cleveland Browns will target in the draft.
Players having their stocks go up based on athletic data makes sense in theory, but practically speaking, they are showing NFL decision makers who they were all along. The hope is that every prospect puts out the best results possible to give a read of exactly what they are capable of in terms of speed, power and flexibility.
Depending on the position, certain aspects are more important than others, but much like with their tape, everything is designed to reveal who they are, both in terms of strengths and weaknesses.
There are undoubtedly surprises at the combine, which is great, especially when it’s a player goes out and shows he was underestimated. That raises their potential, but it also means going to the tape and figuring out what was missed, if anything.
Every year, there are people who will say the combine testing is unimportant, but not only are coaches sitting there watching the whole thing intently, a number of teams, notably the Cleveland Browns, have an entire department dedicated to processing and understanding data, including athletic metrics. The testing data isn’t the most important part of the combine; the medical check is, but it’s still a big part of the event and teams definitely pay attention.
So, with athletic results out, it’s time to take another look at what the Browns might do in the draft. And because there is athletic data, only players that tested were selected. Beyond that, it’s just finding players as always that make sense and getting to explore and highlight more prospects that look like they can be good players that fit the Browns.
This time, the framework used was from The Draft Network and their recently minted mock draft system and it was largely because they had such a comprehensive list of the players that will be in this class. So, let’s see what the Browns did.