The Curious Case; Part Deux: why it matters … Following up on the earlier story on the supposed controversy regarding Ohio State WR Carnell Tate’s somewhat disappointing 40 time at last weekend’s scouting combine, we have had a number of correspondents asking what’s the big deal anyway? Everybody knows Tate is a really good player who runs great routes and has terrific hands. Besides didn’t another former Ohio State WR, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who led the league in receiving this past season enroute to leading Seattle to a Super Bowl title, also run in the same range with a 4.52 40 combine clocking. He did and Tate is still a very good prospect who could yet turn out to be yet another really good former OSU WR in the pros.
But just based on pure probabilities, and that’s what ultimately the draft is all about, those numbers, combined with the fact that Tate also weighed in at 192 pounds, under the expected 205-210 range, just don’t necessarily represent good value for a top 5 pick. Indeed, in the past 15 years or so, no WR has been selected with a top 5-6 pick who didn’t run under, or at least very close, to the 4.4 mark. I’ll leave it to someone with a higher pay grade than anyone on our staff, but we would think, just as an example, that the numbers would show that a productive college receiver with good size who runs in the 4.35 range has something like a 40% chance of being a really good receiver in the NFL, but that number would drop to around say 30% for one who runs a 4.42, to 20% for one who runs in the 4.47 range, and 10% for one that runs in the 4.52 range, whatever school they come from.
In the end, pro teams were hoping that Tate would in fact run closer to the 4.45 mark, if not 4.4, but needless to say that didn’t happen. On the other hand, guys like Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love and Ohio State LB Sonny Styles, who had also both been flirting with that Top 5 territory, did go out and blow away the field in Indianapolis by posting elite numbers. One could, of course, also get into a debate whether a good WR prospect trumps a very good RB or LB in this day and age in the NFL, but we’ll leave that one for another day.
