Speaker 1: I get everybody on Dan Horden.
Speaker 2: Thanks for downloading the Bengals Booth Podcast.
Speaker 1: The super free, super free.
Speaker 2: Addition, as I pose five questions to the mutant Bengals
Speaker 2: rookie Chris Jenkins. Plus Can't Lee Platt, the guy who
Speaker 2: invented relative athletics score discusses the freakiness of this year's
Speaker 2: draft class, and finally, I'll talk to a quarterback who
Speaker 2: is back on the Bengals roster six years after being
Speaker 2: drafted by Cincinnati. The Bengals Booth Podcast is brought to
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Speaker 2: of the Bengals. Now here's a quick reminder that you
Speaker 2: can have the latest edition of this poto delivered right
Speaker 2: to your phone, tablet, or computer by subscribing wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts. It's the greatest thing since Howard denneroff.
Speaker 2: On Wednesday, it was announced that Howard is leaving Westwood
Speaker 2: One Sports after being the executive producer of its national
Speaker 2: radio broadcasts for roughly thirty years. So if you were
Speaker 2: in your car and couldn't be in front of the
Speaker 2: TV for part of a Super Bowl or the Final Four,
Speaker 2: or the Masters, or the Kentucky Derby or the Olympics,
Speaker 2: and wound up listening on the radio, chances are Howard
Speaker 2: was in charge of the broadcast. I don't know of
Speaker 2: anybody in any walk of life who does his or
Speaker 2: her job better. Howard's knowledge, attention to detail, and ear
Speaker 2: for what makes a great broadcast and broadcaster is simply unmatched.
Speaker 2: I don't know what he plans to do next, but
Speaker 2: any company would be fortunate to higher Howard Denaroff. Now
Speaker 2: let's get to football. Last week on this podcast, I
Speaker 2: posed five questions to first round draft pick of Marius Mims, where,
Speaker 2: among other things, we learned that he hasn't surrendered a
Speaker 2: sack since he was a junior in high school. That
Speaker 2: was five years ago. I told him, Marius, we'd all
Speaker 2: be perfectly happy if he averages one sack allowed every
Speaker 2: five years in Cincinnati. Now time for another round of
Speaker 2: five questions with the team's second round selection, a defensive
Speaker 2: tackle out of Michigan with a fantastic nickname. Time for
Speaker 2: five questions with second round draft pick Chris Jenkins. Question
Speaker 2: number one is, Bengals fans have now learned your nickname
Speaker 2: is the Mutant, which is a fantastic sports nickname. What
Speaker 2: did you think the first time you heard it? And
Speaker 2: is there a better sports nickname than the Mutant?
Speaker 3: So, you know, my sophomore year, that's when our head
Speaker 3: strength coach, Coach heard gave me that nickname. And this
Speaker 3: is before I earned my stripes. I've really proved myself
Speaker 3: on the team, so you know, getting that from him
Speaker 3: when I first heard it, you know, I was kind
Speaker 3: of starshucking the moment. I was kind of shocked, and
Speaker 3: then the whole team embraced that before I feel like
Speaker 3: I really embraced it. And you know, ever since I
Speaker 3: got that nickname, you know, I just tried to embrace
Speaker 3: what people saw in me and just get that right back.
Speaker 2: And then so Mamba Magic, I mean, does anything compare?
Speaker 2: Is there anything that you think, all right, that one's
Speaker 2: even better?
Speaker 3: I think no, I think the Mutant definitely up there.
Speaker 3: But with that, with such a cold nickname, that just
Speaker 3: means I have to be that much colder on the field.
Speaker 1: I like it all right.
Speaker 2: There's a guy that puts out a freak list every
Speaker 2: year before the college football season, supposedly the top one
Speaker 2: hundred athletic freaks in college football. You were in the
Speaker 2: top ten prior to last year. And one of the
Speaker 2: things they showed, which is some video that's now like
Speaker 2: making the rounds on the internet, it's called the Turkish
Speaker 2: get up that you did with one hundred seven tventy
Speaker 2: pound dumbbells. I didn't even know they existed at one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy pounds. Describe the Turkish get up?
Speaker 3: Well, the Turkish get up, you know, it's really like
Speaker 3: a full body movement. It's a full body lift. You know,
Speaker 3: you start with it, you're holding you know, one hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy or one hundred and seventy pounds, you know,
Speaker 3: on a single arm and start off, but you got
Speaker 3: to use your core to push up off the ground.
Speaker 3: You got to be able to stand up with it
Speaker 3: all the way off the ground and then get back
Speaker 3: down with it without without it fall and without losing
Speaker 3: track of it. And you know, that's really something where
Speaker 3: before I really came to the Canda, Michigan. I didn't
Speaker 3: even know I could do, let alone do that much
Speaker 3: amount of weight, So, you know, and really, those dumbells
Speaker 3: get to about two ten and I've yet to break
Speaker 3: the record there yet. But really I'm trying to get
Speaker 3: I really won't feel satisfied until I could at least
Speaker 3: get to some completely unheard of I want to break
Speaker 3: the limit the heaviest dumb bell if I could do
Speaker 3: it with it.
Speaker 1: Oh heck yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: For people that haven't checked it out, look up Chris Jenkins, Turkish,
Speaker 2: get up.
Speaker 1: You will be impressed. Question number three.
Speaker 2: You were the captain on a national championship team last
Speaker 2: year with the Wolverines. They just released them video sometime
Speaker 2: in the last week or two of your national championship
Speaker 2: rings and what they're going to look like. I assume
Speaker 2: you've seen that. What'd you think and what other swag
Speaker 2: do you have? Did you save from the national championship?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no rings. When we saw them, they're beautiful, man,
Speaker 3: The Rose Bowl ring, it is honestly the best, to
Speaker 3: be honest, is beautiful. But you know, finally getting those rings,
Speaker 3: seeing them and putting them on, man, it was just
Speaker 3: having that jip. You know that's what you worked for
Speaker 3: and having that and to be honest with you, don't
Speaker 3: got no other jet really from the natty you know,
Speaker 3: I don't got I really don't. I'm not that joypy
Speaker 3: in general. So that's what makes the rings that much better.
Speaker 3: That's why we got to get more and more and more,
Speaker 3: as many as possible.
Speaker 1: So you've actually had the ring. It wasn't just video.
Speaker 3: Oh no, we got the rings. We got the rings
Speaker 3: right now, all four of them, all four of the
Speaker 3: beautiful rings, right where they belong.
Speaker 1: Nice. Okay, I didn't see that.
Speaker 2: Question Number four for Chris Jenkins, your coach at Michigan
Speaker 2: was Jim Harbaugh. Tremendous coach now with the LA Chargers,
Speaker 2: but famously quirky.
Speaker 1: Do you have a best Jim Harbaugh story?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? I think I want to say his really, his
Speaker 3: workout stories are the best stories for me because you
Speaker 3: wouldn't expect it, like say, whatever you're wearing now, whatever
Speaker 3: I'm wearing now plus a polo plus a cap khakis.
Speaker 3: He's he's working like that at six am. It don't
Speaker 3: matter if we're getting in the if coach, our strength
Speaker 3: coach told us to get in the cold top submerge,
Speaker 3: you know, as a mental test before we do a workout.
Speaker 3: He would do that in the khakis and a polo
Speaker 3: before not working at it. Both like, that's that's his
Speaker 3: type of versity, and that's what we fell in love with,
Speaker 3: you know, you know, being at Michigan because you know
Speaker 3: you're gonna you're gonna.
Speaker 1: Do that cold top in the khakis. Absolutely, that is fantastic.
Speaker 1: I wish there was a video of.
Speaker 2: That on the end ofnet all right, fifth and final question,
Speaker 2: tell us something about you that not many people know.
Speaker 3: Really probably not a lot of people know, But I'm
Speaker 3: an anime lover. I'm really just a nerd in general,
Speaker 3: huge nerd, Like I got comic book collection at the crib,
Speaker 3: you know that I've had since I was like young,
Speaker 3: in like a ten year old. So you know, when
Speaker 3: I'm off the field, I'm really just like i'd say,
Speaker 3: like a giant dork and a big football jock's body.
Speaker 3: Like me and me on and off the field are
Speaker 3: kind of two completely different people. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: you know, like it's yeah, I'm just I'm just a
Speaker 3: nerd for real, for real, legos all that.
Speaker 1: Oh my kid, loves lego.
Speaker 2: Do you remember former NFL defensive lineman Mike Daniels, mostly
Speaker 2: of the Packers, a little bit with the Bengals, Absolutely,
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 3: If I'm if I'm not mistaken, I think he might
Speaker 3: have played with my uncle for the time.
Speaker 2: Well, I bring it up because he was a huge
Speaker 2: anime guy. So you're not the only NFL defensive tackle
Speaker 2: who loves animating.
Speaker 3: Okay, No, that's what's up. Nah, that's what's up. Then
Speaker 3: we definitely gonna have to collab at some point on anime,
Speaker 3: you know, at least in the off season, at least
Speaker 3: when we know you feel me during in season. We
Speaker 3: gotta we gotta take our business.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: The mutant is off the hot seat. I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2: Look forward to gtting to know you better.
Speaker 3: Yes, appreciate you. Thank you for having me, Thank you
Speaker 3: very much.
Speaker 2: So the Turkish get up is not the only evidence
Speaker 2: that Chris Jenkins is a physical freak. His forty yard dash,
Speaker 2: broad jump, and then press numbers were all graded as
Speaker 2: elite by a guy that many of you have undoubtedly
Speaker 2: heard of, Kent Lee Platt, the inventor of raz Or
Speaker 2: relative athletic score that takes many of the things that
Speaker 2: are measured at the combine like height, weight, forty times,
Speaker 2: vertical leap, etc. And combines them to form one number
Speaker 2: on a scale of one to ten. Jenkins RAS score
Speaker 2: was eight point nine to nine, which is very high
Speaker 2: for a defensive tackle. I caught up with Kent this
Speaker 2: week to discuss his work and what it tells us
Speaker 2: about the Bengals. Can't you are described on the internet
Speaker 2: as a map chunkie and a football nerd?
Speaker 1: Is that accurate?
Speaker 4: That's very accurate. That's what I go for.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: So give us a description for how our as relative
Speaker 2: athletic score came about.
Speaker 4: So I started rasback in twenty thirteen. This was the
Speaker 4: Leveon Beld. It wasn't just Leveon Bell, but he was
Speaker 4: kind of the catalyst, like that turning point that really
Speaker 4: made me want to go through with doing something about it.
Speaker 4: But at the time he had run a four to
Speaker 4: six in the forty yard dash and the entire argument
Speaker 4: about him going into the draft that year was about
Speaker 4: how unathletic Leveon Bell was and I just did not
Speaker 4: It just didn't track with what the data actually said.
Speaker 4: And I'd been looking at the data for a while,
Speaker 4: so I knew that, but just the fact that that
Speaker 4: was the whole argument was he ran a bad forty.
Speaker 4: He's unathletic. You're talking about the guy that was two
Speaker 4: hundred and thirty pounds as a running back, and he
Speaker 4: had a six seventy five to three cone, which is
Speaker 4: one of the better three cones you can possibly get
Speaker 4: for any physician, let alone a two hundred and thirty
Speaker 4: pounds running back. So the idea that we use all
Speaker 4: those terms that don't really mean anything if they don't
Speaker 4: have any context behind him. I wanted to add a
Speaker 4: little bit of that context. So I developed a system
Speaker 4: that puts all of those testing numbers on a zero
Speaker 4: to ten scale compared to the player's position group, dating
Speaker 4: back all the way back into nineteen eighty seven until
Speaker 4: the player draft year. Everything is stop light color coded again,
Speaker 4: because it's easy, it's accessible. The intention is that anybody
Speaker 4: can look at these scores and kind of understand what
Speaker 4: they mean and what they're for. And it's been a
Speaker 4: lot of fun and I feel like people have enjoyed
Speaker 4: it so far.
Speaker 2: There's no questions that fans enjoy it. Have you gotten
Speaker 2: feedback from NFL teams.
Speaker 4: So NFL teams all have their own dedicated analytics departments,
Speaker 4: They've got their own teams of personnel, they have access
Speaker 4: to data that we will never have access to. What
Speaker 4: RAZ provides is a useful analog to what a lot
Speaker 4: of the NFL teams are using. It's similar to what
Speaker 4: they use and close enough for some teams that it's
Speaker 4: virtually indistinguishable. I do talk to scouts fairly regularly, and
Speaker 4: usually for them when they're coming to me for data,
Speaker 4: it's just like, hey, I want to see if these
Speaker 4: two guys are comparable, or hey, can you check and
Speaker 4: see how many guys fell within this range for forty
Speaker 4: yard dash at this weight or something like that. It's
Speaker 4: usually little requests like that. Because I have such good
Speaker 4: data availability, it's easier to get at my data than
Speaker 4: a lot of the teams still have. But generally they
Speaker 4: all have their own stuff that they've been using for years,
Speaker 4: and this is just similar enough to it.
Speaker 2: And it seems to me that fans are most interested
Speaker 2: in RAS in association with the draft. Is that the
Speaker 2: case for you or are you using it now in
Speaker 2: other ways as well?
Speaker 4: I use it for all kinds of stuff outside of
Speaker 4: not even just the draft, but the NFL, NFL players,
Speaker 4: college college players that are going to the NFL. They
Speaker 4: don't really need guys like me to advertise for them,
Speaker 4: right they don't. They don't need me to go out
Speaker 4: there and talk about how athletic these guys are. Everyone knows.
Speaker 4: Everybody can watch it. They're going to get talked about
Speaker 4: for months leading up to the draft. I do some
Speaker 4: work with high school students that are trying to get
Speaker 4: into college. Those guys don't get any anybody to advocate
Speaker 4: for them. There isn't really a good way to propose
Speaker 4: or to show the kind of testing that they have.
Speaker 4: I've been working on that for a couple of years
Speaker 4: and have made some pretty good headways in doing that
Speaker 4: and using the metrics in a way that kind of
Speaker 4: helps high schole students get their names out there. But generally,
Speaker 4: when it comes to the stuff that's for that's that's
Speaker 4: like public facing. It's all draft stuff and just looking
Speaker 4: at neat trends. I mean, I'll do stuff at free
Speaker 4: agency and other times of the year just because it's fun,
Speaker 4: Like it's just fun to do that. Does it really
Speaker 4: matter what a guy tested? Eight nine years ago, but
Speaker 4: when he came out of the drafts on his second
Speaker 4: free agency period. No, no, it doesn't matter at all.
Speaker 4: But it's still fun, you know, it's always good to
Speaker 4: look back on that stuff and see what's up.
Speaker 2: We're going to get to the Bengals here in a second.
Speaker 2: But are there positions where RAZ judges success best and
Speaker 2: others where it doesn't.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, tight end is always the one that we bring up.
Speaker 4: It has one of the cleanest correlations to success for
Speaker 4: any position, just because it's just one of those positions
Speaker 4: where you've got to be athletic to win. Every other
Speaker 4: position has at least one player who has found success
Speaker 4: in the NFL just despite testing poorly. Tight end doesn't
Speaker 4: have that. Since since the year two thousand, there's only
Speaker 4: been one player who had a poor RAZ at tight
Speaker 4: end who still found reasonable success in the NFL, and
Speaker 4: it was Jordan Reed, who barely qualified for RAZ because
Speaker 4: of injury, which was ultimately the story of a good
Speaker 4: portion of Jordan Reid's career. But every single tight end
Speaker 4: since the year two thousand has been either a well
Speaker 4: above average athlete or an elite tier athlete. And you
Speaker 4: see that every single year. Anytime that guys come out.
Speaker 4: It's never a good sign on a tight end test poorly. Consequently,
Speaker 4: you look at the other side and you have guys
Speaker 4: like our positions like quarterback, where a lot of the
Speaker 4: skills that make a good quarterback aren't what we're testing
Speaker 4: with the drills that go into RAZ. If a quarterback
Speaker 4: is a pocket passer, pretty much none of those metrics
Speaker 4: are going to matter. You can argue that the cone might,
Speaker 4: you can argue that the shuttle might, but generally those
Speaker 4: drills don't really mean a whole lot for the success
Speaker 4: of a quarterback. While the math says that there's a
Speaker 4: correlation with center, I've found that there's a lot of
Speaker 4: NFL centers who have tested poorly and still found NFL success.
Speaker 4: I generally chalked that up to being just a more
Speaker 4: cerebral position. You know, you're paying attention more to what
Speaker 4: a guy has north of the neckline than the general athleticism.
Speaker 4: The math still tells us that there's a strong correlation there,
Speaker 4: but there's enough guys that have tested poorly and found
Speaker 4: success that it's notable to look at that position a
Speaker 4: little differently.
Speaker 2: Our guest is Kent Lee Platt. He is the creator
Speaker 2: of RAS Relative Athletics Score, and he is a great
Speaker 2: X follow at math bomb. Yes math bomb, you can
Speaker 2: see his data online as well at rasis dot football.
Speaker 2: Let's take a look at the Bengals draft class, beginning
Speaker 2: with their first pick, number eighteen, overall offensive lineman A
Speaker 2: Marius Mims. He had an Elite RAS score of nine
Speaker 2: point five nine on a scale up to ten. After
Speaker 2: the pick, you sent out the following tweet, I'm very
Speaker 2: happy for Bengals fans as their team took their first
Speaker 2: Elite RAS offense linemen in a decade. This seems to
Speaker 2: be something that you've been following for a while where
Speaker 2: the Bengals are concerned.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not just the Bengals. The overall athleticism on
Speaker 4: the offensive line was a big deal for me when
Speaker 4: I first started RAZ because I'm a Lions fan. I
Speaker 4: follow the Lions. That's my team, and the Lions had
Speaker 4: one of the least athletic offensive lines in the NFL
Speaker 4: for for years and years and years, and right around
Speaker 4: there with them was the Bengals. They were also there
Speaker 4: with a very unathletic offensive line. The Lions eventually got
Speaker 4: away from that. They switched general managers they changed their
Speaker 4: focus a little bit when it came to drafting athletes
Speaker 4: on the offensive line, but the Bengals never did and
Speaker 4: it bled into their free agency signings. The type of
Speaker 4: guys they brought into free agency, it's like they were
Speaker 4: actively avoiding anyone who could move. And I've had a
Speaker 4: lot of good laughs. I have a lot of friends
Speaker 4: that are Bengals fans, and I've been doing this for
Speaker 4: a while and we've had a lot of really good
Speaker 4: laughs joking about just how extreme it was, because it's
Speaker 4: not a small difference. I mean, they're they're on average
Speaker 4: like three or four points lower on a scale of
Speaker 4: zero to ten, like three or four points lower than
Speaker 4: the next worst team in general. So they just just
Speaker 4: an extreme outlier in that regard. But they drafted a
Speaker 4: couple of guys in this draft class, and coming from
Speaker 4: what they've been doing for the last decade and seeing
Speaker 4: them finally change that has got to be a little
Speaker 4: bit of a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 2: So you're right, there's seventh rounder Matt Lee also had
Speaker 2: a very high eras score. Have you found historically that
Speaker 2: the higher rated offensive lines in terms of rushing yard
Speaker 2: sacks allowed, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Have higher RAS scores.
Speaker 4: Generally, it's more it's a better indicator of individual performance
Speaker 4: than it is group. Anytime you look at an average,
Speaker 4: especially when you only have a couple of a couple
Speaker 4: of numbers, right so there's only five players on an
Speaker 4: offensive line, one bad score can really throw off the average,
Speaker 4: so overall looking that you don't really see that. Now,
Speaker 4: as far as a general trend, two of the teams
Speaker 4: that are generally add or near the top are the
Speaker 4: Chiefs and the Eagles. Those are generally very good teams
Speaker 4: and they usually have good offensive lines. The Indianapolis Colts
Speaker 4: have been up and down with their offensive line performance,
Speaker 4: but they're consistently one of the highest athletic offensive lines
Speaker 4: in the NFL. So there are some general trends that
Speaker 4: we can get from it, but we also know that
Speaker 4: it has to do a little bit with scheme as well.
Speaker 4: A few years ago, when the Raiders had a good
Speaker 4: offensive line, that wasn't a very athletic offensive line, but
Speaker 4: they were also very power heavy. They were all about
Speaker 4: those big people movers that can just bully people around.
Speaker 4: So it was very much a schematic choice for them
Speaker 4: to do that. And when you have teams that follow
Speaker 4: what the Eagles have been doing for the last fifteen
Speaker 4: or twenty years. They've been doing it for a long time,
Speaker 4: and you're trying to find those guys that have all
Speaker 4: that athleticism. They can move, they can pull along the
Speaker 4: offensive line. It just opens up a lot of what
Speaker 4: you can do. Statistically speaking, its correlates better the further
Speaker 4: on the outside of the offensive line that you are.
Speaker 4: Tackles have a bigger correlation than guards. Guards have a
Speaker 4: bigger correlation than center. But you just want athletes when
Speaker 4: you can get them.
Speaker 2: So if the Bengals have not historically drafted offensive lineman
Speaker 2: with high RAZ scores, what about other positions historically?
Speaker 4: I know that they've they've they've went up and down
Speaker 4: for wide receivers, but kind of at the extreme. So
Speaker 4: Jamar Chase was one of the most athletic wide receivers
Speaker 4: of all time. But then you have guys like T
Speaker 4: Higgins who didn't test all that well. I actually had
Speaker 4: a whole thread on t Higgins before he was drafted
Speaker 4: about how you know, RAZ is really good at at
Speaker 4: identifying general trends, but there's certain players who have a
Speaker 4: style of play where it doesn't necessarily illustrate what they're
Speaker 4: good at. We saw it with Ceedee Lamb, we saw
Speaker 4: it with Calvin Ridley. We've seen it with my favorite one,
Speaker 4: An Kwan Bolden, who you know, for An Kwon Bolden,
Speaker 4: it didn't matter that he wasn't fast or explosive or quick,
Speaker 4: because if the ball was in the air, it was
Speaker 4: his football and you had to beat him for it,
Speaker 4: and most of the time you were losing that fight.
Speaker 4: You know. With t Higgins, he mostly used his length.
Speaker 4: He was very adept at boxing players out by using
Speaker 4: his body and using that control that he had over
Speaker 4: his size and his length to do a lot of
Speaker 4: the work for him. It doesn't matter that he didn't
Speaker 4: run a great forty times because he's not a burner
Speaker 4: that's trying to outrun everybody. He's using his body and
Speaker 4: his size to get rid of people. As long as
Speaker 4: he's not slow, you're fine. And he isn't slow. You know,
Speaker 4: he tested decent with speed, So sometimes it doesn't really
Speaker 4: matter as much. If you're looking at the style of play,
Speaker 4: the Bengals have primarily paid attention to defensive guys on
Speaker 4: the defensive side, or sorry athletic guys on the defensive
Speaker 4: side of the ball. They haven't really paid as much
Speaker 4: obviously the offensive line, and then I said they mixed
Speaker 4: it up a bit both at running back and at
Speaker 4: wide receiver. They've done that, so mostly they they paid
Speaker 4: attention to defense, which could just be keeping up in
Speaker 4: division because the Steelers have done the same thing, the
Speaker 4: Ravens have done the same thing, and you really can't
Speaker 4: let yourself fall behind in a competitive division.
Speaker 2: So that's a very good segue into my next question,
Speaker 2: because one member of this year's draft class had a
Speaker 2: very poor ras score, and that is three hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty six pound nose tackle McKinley Jackson, the second of
Speaker 2: their two third round picks. But you tweeted that his
Speaker 2: score is fine for a nose tackle.
Speaker 1: Why.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So the ras US is traditional NFL positional alignments,
Speaker 4: which it means the defensive tackles but not nose tackle
Speaker 4: and defensive end but not necessarily edge, which kind of
Speaker 4: puts us a little bit behind. And I am working
Speaker 4: on updating that a little bit, modernizing a little bit,
Speaker 4: But when it comes to nose tackles, you're kind of
Speaker 4: just looking at the overall testing and saying is this
Speaker 4: guy such a terrible athlete that he can't stand there
Speaker 4: and push guys around. You know, nose tackles don't need
Speaker 4: to run well. They don't run forty yards. They don't
Speaker 4: even run ten yards most plays. They don't need to
Speaker 4: be quick or agile. It's great if they are. See
Speaker 4: all these things are bonuses if they have them, But
Speaker 4: they don't need to be a quick and agile guy
Speaker 4: if you're a nose tackle, because that's not how you're
Speaker 4: moving on a football field. So it doesn't matter if
Speaker 4: you don't test well there. When you have a nose tackle,
Speaker 4: you want them to weigh a good amount. Obviously they're big.
Speaker 4: Size is a big deal for them. He weighs three
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty six pounds over ninetieth percentile for a
Speaker 4: defensive tackle. That's great. You got the weight, you're good.
Speaker 4: You want them to be strong. He had a twenty
Speaker 4: four bench, which is kind of average, but he's got
Speaker 4: longer arms so that an average bench is perfectly fine.
Speaker 4: You would prefer that they have a good broad jump.
Speaker 4: Bigger guys that can propel themselves forward quickly and with
Speaker 4: a lot of power. That's a big bonus when you
Speaker 4: have a guy that's playing on the defensive line and
Speaker 4: nose tackles that can do that. That's a lot of
Speaker 4: weight to move forward with, so even having it just
Speaker 4: above average broad jump is important, and he did for that,
Speaker 4: and then of course the ten yard split for the
Speaker 4: exact same reason. You want a guy that can explode
Speaker 4: out of his stands and use that lower body power
Speaker 4: to provide force for the rest of his body. He
Speaker 4: can do that just fine. McKinley. Jackson didn't test well
Speaker 4: as a defensive tackle. He's not an interior pass rusher.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter that he didn't well test well for
Speaker 4: the same way it doesn't matter that he didn't test
Speaker 4: well for a receiver. He's not playing that position.
Speaker 1: Let's hope not now.
Speaker 2: One player that really stood out to me in terms
Speaker 2: of his RAS score was the Bengals' second sixth round pick,
Speaker 2: edge rusher Cedric Johnson. He's a little undersized six three
Speaker 2: two sixty but had a thirty eight inch vertical ran
Speaker 2: a four to six three forty. Is that exactly what
Speaker 2: a team should be looking for in a late sixth
Speaker 2: round pick. Somebody with measurables like that, quote unquote, A
Speaker 2: potential diamond in the rock.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, especially for guys late pass rushers, and I mentioned
Speaker 4: tight ends earlier on the other side of the ball,
Speaker 4: that's defensive ends. Those are the types of guys that
Speaker 4: fall into that category. You want those elite tier athletes.
Speaker 4: And I've posted threads on it every year about the
Speaker 4: top sack artists in the NFL, and it is rare
Speaker 4: that we have a guy with below average testing. It's
Speaker 4: rare that we have a guy with below elite testing
Speaker 4: who becomes a double digit sack guy in the NFL.
Speaker 4: You generally want from a broad perspective, not looking at
Speaker 4: play style or anything. You want a player that tests
Speaker 4: really well for agility, and Johnson didn't test well for agility.
Speaker 4: But that's a broad assumption. Right Again, these positional alignments
Speaker 4: are not perfect. They're based on pretty outdated concepts. If
Speaker 4: you have a defensive lineman who is very explosive. You
Speaker 4: mentioned his vert which was ninety six percentile. He has
Speaker 4: an almost ninetieth percentile broad jump as well, so very
Speaker 4: good testing from an explosiveness standpoint, and then he has
Speaker 4: that speed. That's a guy that can burst off the line.
Speaker 4: He can use that lower body explosiveness and get off
Speaker 4: out of his stance very quickly, and he can get
Speaker 4: up to speed quickly, which is great for pursuit trying
Speaker 4: to get after the quarterback. Those are all translatable skills,
Speaker 4: things that you see on a football field. So having
Speaker 4: traits in that area means there's something there you can develop,
Speaker 4: something you can work with. Smart teams recognize that and
Speaker 4: pay attention to it.
Speaker 2: Our guest has Kent Lee plapped the creative Relative Athletics score.
Speaker 2: You can and should be following him on x at
Speaker 2: math bomb. He shares a lot of great data and
Speaker 2: it's free. Give us your overall impressions of this year's
Speaker 2: draft class. We've obviously covered a few of the guys,
Speaker 2: but how about the Bengals class top to bottom.
Speaker 4: So I already mentioned that I'm very excited that the
Speaker 4: Bengals are taking a step forward in terms of their
Speaker 4: offensive line. From an overall athletic standpoint, I think they
Speaker 4: ranked twenty twenty fourth. There's not a lot of separation
Speaker 4: when you're ranking, and like this same reason I mentioned
Speaker 4: before for averaging, it's small numbers in your averaging, so
Speaker 4: there's not going to be a huge huge difference overall,
Speaker 4: but generally they went for really strong athletes, and the
Speaker 4: guys that they took that weren't elite athletes had some
Speaker 4: elite traits. Tanner McLachlan from Arizona there I think that
Speaker 4: was another six or seventh round pick. Didn't have elite agility,
Speaker 4: which is what kept his score from being above that
Speaker 4: eight elite mark, but he has great speed. You want
Speaker 4: a guy that can run up the seam cool he's
Speaker 4: he's got that trade, he's a thing. There's a thing
Speaker 4: that he can do at an elite level that provides
Speaker 4: an opportunity for the team to use him to contribute.
Speaker 4: Not everybody's going to be an All star, and you
Speaker 4: shouldn't expect them all to be All pros. But if
Speaker 4: you can contribute from day one, or have those developmental
Speaker 4: traits that you can contribute long term, then the team
Speaker 4: can find value for you rather quickly. And getting guys
Speaker 4: with strong athletic traits, even if it's specialized in areas,
Speaker 4: is very smart. It's a very very wise way to
Speaker 4: approach the draft. Guys that don't test well, they've got
Speaker 4: to have something else to make up for it. They've
Speaker 4: got They're going to be going up against guys that
Speaker 4: are way more athletic than them, so they've got to
Speaker 4: have some other trait that sets them apart. The Bengals
Speaker 4: very much just avoided having to make decision with their
Speaker 4: class this year. They didn't take anybody where they'd have
Speaker 4: to go, Okay, well is this guy going to be
Speaker 4: an exception? They don't need to worry about it. They
Speaker 4: didn't take any exceptions. They just took a bunch of
Speaker 4: really good athletes and called it a day.
Speaker 2: How do the Bengals compare to their opponents in the
Speaker 2: AFC North the Steelers, Ravens, and Browns.
Speaker 4: So the Steelers, I know, have been trying to get
Speaker 4: a little bit more defensive on there, are a little
Speaker 4: bit more athletic on their defense. They've they've had a
Speaker 4: few a few weaker picks on that side of the
Speaker 4: ball over the last few years and they've been trying
Speaker 4: to make up for it. They've generally gotten better there.
Speaker 4: The Browns have been a little bit up and down
Speaker 4: with some of that stuff, but they've overall been pretty
Speaker 4: analytics focused for several years. I mean, they went through
Speaker 4: what fourteen GMS or something like that. Eventually something had
Speaker 4: to stick right, But generally they kind of looked at
Speaker 4: the Ravens are always a difficult team to evaluate because
Speaker 4: they're they're so they have such a different approach to
Speaker 4: talent evaluation than any other team in the NFL. So
Speaker 4: sometimes they will take big, big swings on guys with
Speaker 4: lower athletic testing. They didn't really do that this year.
Speaker 4: They tended to focus on on athletes, so did the Browns,
Speaker 4: so did the Steelers. Overall, the conference as a whole
Speaker 4: and the division as a whole spent a lot of
Speaker 4: time trying to find those those top athletes, and that
Speaker 4: means it's competitive. That means that you're fighting with people
Speaker 4: who are looking for the same thing. So they're they're
Speaker 4: all trying to get a bit more fast, a bit
Speaker 4: more explosive.
Speaker 2: Looking at the Bengals current roster andre Yosi, Bosh had
Speaker 2: the highest RAZ at nine point nine to six, which
Speaker 2: makes sense since he is a world class heptathlete. I
Speaker 2: imagine that was kind of a fun one to study
Speaker 2: coming out of Princeton.
Speaker 4: Yeah, any anytime you get those guys that are that
Speaker 4: are and I'm using the term it sounds kind of derived,
Speaker 4: but are just athletes, right, That's that's their whole calling
Speaker 4: card is the fact that they are extremely strong athletically.
Speaker 4: It's always exciting to watch those guys grow because it's
Speaker 4: it is a big risk to take a swing on
Speaker 4: guys like that. I don't think it's as big of
Speaker 4: a risk. I actually know some people who who have
Speaker 4: worked with him and have coached with have coached him,
Speaker 4: and none of them think that he's this developmental, long
Speaker 4: term thing. They all believe that he's a guy that
Speaker 4: can step in and start and start working right away
Speaker 4: and contribute right away. But when you're looking at it
Speaker 4: from a broader perspective, you're looking at a guy with
Speaker 4: all of the traits that you need, not one or two,
Speaker 4: all of the traits you need to be a successful
Speaker 4: wide receiver in the NFL, and you give yourself that
Speaker 4: little playing piece that you can start working into your offense,
Speaker 4: that you can start trying to find, Okay, what can
Speaker 4: we do with that? What can we do with a
Speaker 4: guy that has this size, the speed, this explosiveness, this agility,
Speaker 4: What can we do to get him more involved. It's
Speaker 4: always exciting to watch those guys and see how it
Speaker 4: works out. Sometimes it's a little messy, but sometimes you
Speaker 4: get guys you don't expect to be as good as
Speaker 4: they are. Jason Peters was a tight end coming up
Speaker 4: by college. He was an undrafted tight end who went
Speaker 4: on to become one of the best offensive tackles in
Speaker 4: NFL history. Sometimes you take those swings and they work out,
Speaker 4: and using mid late round picks on guys like that
Speaker 4: is a good, good idea to go ahead and take
Speaker 4: those swings.
Speaker 2: So this offseason, the Chiefs picked up Hollywood Brown. They
Speaker 2: drafted Xavier Worthy, who set the forty yard dash record
Speaker 2: at the combine. I'm half convinced that they're going to
Speaker 2: sign you Saint Bolt tomorrow. It seems like anybody that
Speaker 2: can run that fast is going to be a Kansas
Speaker 2: City Chief. Do they stand out as the most athletic
Speaker 2: team in the NFL? Or are they high on the list?
Speaker 2: What do you find in looking at Kansas City over
Speaker 2: the years.
Speaker 4: I don't think they've been number one in any draft
Speaker 4: in a while, but they're always very high up there.
Speaker 4: They're either a top five or top ten team pretty
Speaker 4: much every year, and that kind of predates Andy Reid.
Speaker 4: That's not something that was specific just to Andy Reid.
Speaker 4: It's something they've been doing through multiple, multiple leadership groups.
Speaker 4: But they they are very much at the top of
Speaker 4: the NFL when it comes to selecting athletes. They were
Speaker 4: a top five team this year. Actually they might have
Speaker 4: think they might have been two. They're they're very very high,
Speaker 4: whichever it was. They, like you said, they want fast guys.
Speaker 4: They know who they are, they know what they want
Speaker 4: to do. They look for the guys that do those
Speaker 4: things and that that thing just happens to be very
Speaker 4: fast on offense. So, like you said, if a guy
Speaker 4: runs fast, he's a he's a candidate to be a chief.
Speaker 2: Are there any misconceptions about raz.
Speaker 3: Yes, lots.
Speaker 4: One of the biggest things that comes up is is
Speaker 4: how we chart like success or how likely guys are
Speaker 4: to be successful. A guy testing well doesn't mean that
Speaker 4: he's going to be successful in the NFL, and it
Speaker 4: doesn't even really mean that he is likely to be
Speaker 4: successful in the NFL. Most NFL prospects fail and it's
Speaker 4: I discussed it every year, but it's just really hard
Speaker 4: to wrap your around sometimes that there's about two hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty players that are drafted every year, and of
Speaker 4: those two hundred and fifty, maybe ten percent will become
Speaker 4: starters in the NFL, so maybe twenty players something like that.
Speaker 4: There are over two thousand players in every draft. It's
Speaker 4: generally about twenty two to twenty five hundred players in
Speaker 4: every draft. Most of those players won't get drafted. Most
Speaker 4: of those players will never see an NFL field, They'll
Speaker 4: never be in an NFL training camp, whether or not
Speaker 4: they tested well. So when you start looking at things
Speaker 4: like RAZ, you're looking at what are the successful players
Speaker 4: in the NFL and what common traits do they share
Speaker 4: with NFL prospects.
Speaker 3: And that is.
Speaker 4: Generally where you find your athletes, your guys like Amarius
Speaker 4: Mims who have all these very strong athletic traits that
Speaker 4: line up very well with players who have been successful previously,
Speaker 4: and if they test well, you look at how they
Speaker 4: win on the football field. And this is where the
Speaker 4: biggest misconception is, which is that I'm just the numbers guy, right,
Speaker 4: and I'm all, it's just the numbers, and that's it.
Speaker 4: RAZ is meant to be a part of an evaluation.
Speaker 4: It is not the evaluation. You should never start and
Speaker 4: stop with RAZ. It should always be a piece of
Speaker 4: that puzzle. And if you're looking at a guy that
Speaker 4: tests really well. That's obviously a positive thing, but if
Speaker 4: it doesn't show up on a football field, you have
Speaker 4: to ask yourself, why while why am I not seeing
Speaker 4: those athletic traits? And sometimes it's attitude. Sometimes they just
Speaker 4: they just check out. They don't really care that much
Speaker 4: about football, they don't want to be out there. Sometimes
Speaker 4: it's technique. Danielle Hunter is one of my favorite examples
Speaker 4: for that because he had none in college. He had
Speaker 4: I think three total sacks in his career something like
Speaker 4: that when he was in college. A perennial double digit
Speaker 4: sack guy now, but he had all those athletic traits,
Speaker 4: and the Vikings were smart enough to look at that
Speaker 4: and say, Okay, there's a lot that we can work with.
Speaker 4: He just needs to do things with his arms. He's
Speaker 4: got to learn how to use his arms. You know,
Speaker 4: you've got to be able to marry the testing with
Speaker 4: the tape, and you've got to have you got I
Speaker 4: have that gumption to be able to look at a
Speaker 4: player's testing, whether it's very poor or very good, and
Speaker 4: if it doesn't match the tape, you've got to be
Speaker 4: able to say to yourself, I am comfortable drafting this
Speaker 4: player or I am not regardless of the testing, but
Speaker 4: you need to acknowledge that, you need to be aware
Speaker 4: that that's a thing that you're doing, because if you
Speaker 4: just ignore the numbers, you're going to make mistakes. We
Speaker 4: see it every year with some of the guys that
Speaker 4: get drafted, and you always hear people say, oh, you
Speaker 4: can't measure heart, and yeah, that's I mean, that's true,
Speaker 4: but it's not inversely proportional to athletic ability. Guys. Guys
Speaker 4: still got to be able to move, you know.
Speaker 2: So you take all of these things that are measured
Speaker 2: at the combine and at players pro day's height, weight,
Speaker 2: forty time, bench press, broad jump, vertical, three cone drill,
Speaker 2: et cetera, and combine it into one easy to understand number.
Speaker 2: But having said all that, do you think that any
Speaker 2: of those tests is most important?
Speaker 4: Not for every position. I think for individual types of players,
Speaker 4: there are some that very much stand out. There's some
Speaker 4: broad generalizations that you can make the shuttle drill and
Speaker 4: offensive lineman. If you have a very elite shuttle time
Speaker 4: four or five or below, there is a very high
Speaker 4: probability you're going to be an NFL starter. Whether you're
Speaker 4: drafted in the first round or drafted in the seventh
Speaker 4: there's a very high probability you're going to end up
Speaker 4: starting in the NFL. Very hard to ignore when the
Speaker 4: data lines up that cleanly. For pass rushers, if you
Speaker 4: want guys that are going to be bending the edge,
Speaker 4: they're gonna be those agile guys that can bend around
Speaker 4: the side. You want them to have a really good
Speaker 4: cone drill. You want them to have a sub seven cone.
Speaker 4: If you have a speed receiver, obviously you want them
Speaker 4: to test good in the forty. If a guy runs
Speaker 4: a four or five and you expect him to be
Speaker 4: your speedster, there's a lot of corners that are going
Speaker 4: to be faster than him. That's not going to be
Speaker 4: as successful as you think it's going to be. So
Speaker 4: there are some individual traits that are are are specific
Speaker 4: to individual positions in different areas, but none that are broad.
Speaker 4: The cone, I think, tends to line up with the
Speaker 4: most number of positions. So if there was one drill
Speaker 4: that was the most important one, it's probably going to
Speaker 4: be the three cone. But I don't think that that's universal.
Speaker 2: You have lived up to your description as a math
Speaker 2: chunkie and a football nerd. I have told people how
Speaker 2: they can find you on Twitter, but where are all
Speaker 2: the various places that they can see your work?
Speaker 4: So I'm on multiple socials, I'm primarily on Twitter. You
Speaker 4: already mentioned that math bomb. My website is RAZ dot Football.
Speaker 4: You can go and check out anything there for free.
Speaker 4: We're up to twenty six thousand players I think on
Speaker 4: there from nineteen eighty seven to twenty twenty four. I
Speaker 4: also run the Pro Football Network, a mock draft simulator,
Speaker 4: so if you're one of those people who likes doing
Speaker 4: mock drafts, you can always give that a try and
Speaker 4: hopefully you enjoy that as much as you like the
Speaker 4: other stuff that we do. And if you're just bored
Speaker 4: and want to talk football, obviously like talking football, so
Speaker 4: I'm always up for that.
Speaker 2: Well, this has been great. I've been very intrigued by
Speaker 2: RAZ for years now, and I'm glad we finally had
Speaker 2: the opportunity to chat. I appreciate your time, Thanks for
Speaker 2: coming on the pod, and keep up the great work.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much, appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2: Here's a quick reminder that the Bengals Booth podcast is
Speaker 2: brought to you by pay Corps, Proud to be the
Speaker 2: Bengals Official HR software provider by Alta Fiber future proof
Speaker 2: fiber Internet designed to elevate your home, business, and community
Speaker 2: to a new level, and by Kettering Health the best
Speaker 2: care for the best fans. Kettering Health is the official
Speaker 2: healthcare provider of the Bengals. The Bengals open the Rookie
Speaker 2: Mini Camp on Friday. In addition to their ten draft picks,
Speaker 2: the Bengals will be signing nearly fifteen undrafted free agents.
Speaker 2: The team can announce them until they've passed physicals and
Speaker 2: signed their contracts, but the players and or their colleges
Speaker 2: have shared their plans to sign at Cincinnati. I checked
Speaker 2: out the RAS scores for all of those players, and
Speaker 2: the guy with the highest number is a wide receiver
Speaker 2: named Cole Burgess. He's from Dan Pitchers alma mater, Cortland,
Speaker 2: a Division III school in upstate New York, not far
Speaker 2: from Syracuse. The six foot tall, one hundred ninety two
Speaker 2: pound Burgess helped the Red Dragons win the Division III
Speaker 2: national championship last year by catching eighty seven passes for
Speaker 2: nearly fourteen hundred yards, including sixteen for touchdowns. In his
Speaker 2: college career, he averaged more than seventeen yards a catch,
Speaker 2: and Burgess also had three kick returns for touchdowns. His
Speaker 2: RAS score was nine point eight. That would have ranked
Speaker 2: eighth among wide receivers who tested at the NFL Combine,
Speaker 2: as Burgess ran a four four five forty with a
Speaker 2: forty one and a half inch vertical and he broad
Speaker 2: jumped more than eleven feet. I'll be eager to get
Speaker 2: a look at Cole Burgess on Friday. Finally, two years
Speaker 2: before the Bengals drafted Joe Burrow, they used a seventh
Speaker 2: round pick on a quarterback from the University of Toledo
Speaker 2: named Logan Woodside. He never played in the regular season
Speaker 2: for Cincinnati, but Woodside has played in the NFL for
Speaker 2: Tennessee and Atlanta. Now, Logan has returned to the Bengals
Speaker 2: as a free agent and will likely battle an undrafted
Speaker 2: rookie named Rocky Lombardi who played at Michigan State in
Speaker 2: Northern Illinois, to be the bengals number three quarterback. I
Speaker 2: caught up with Logan on his first day back in
Speaker 2: the Bengals locker room. Logan, It's funny sometimes how things
Speaker 2: come full circle. You are back with the team that
Speaker 2: originally drafted you. Tell us about signing with the Bengals.
Speaker 5: Yeah, super excited, super super grateful to be back and
Speaker 5: to have this opportunity, and yeah, it's funny how things
Speaker 5: work out.
Speaker 3: And then I'm super grateful to be here.
Speaker 1: What appealed to you about this opportunity?
Speaker 5: I think just to come back and obviously be a
Speaker 5: part of a great organization, a team that's had a
Speaker 5: lot of success over the last couple of years, and
Speaker 5: you know, just being close to home definitely helps.
Speaker 3: And uh, just excited to be here.
Speaker 2: Obviously being a Joe Burrow teammate speaks for itself. But
Speaker 2: Jake Browning also had a lot of success last year
Speaker 2: when he got the opportunity.
Speaker 1: Do you see a.
Speaker 2: Quarterback room that can help you bring out the best
Speaker 2: in yourself?
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 5: You know, obviously I've known Jake a little bit through
Speaker 5: college and then you know, obviously meeting him this past
Speaker 5: week and youet to meet Joe, but excited to do
Speaker 5: that as well. And two great dudes and obviously great quarterbacks,
Speaker 5: and I'm excited to be a part of it.
Speaker 2: You've had some success when given the opportunity to play
Speaker 2: for other teams in the NFL, how would you characterize
Speaker 2: your career and how you've done so far, you know.
Speaker 5: Just tried to you know, fight each and every day
Speaker 5: to to earn a roster spot, and also just with
Speaker 5: every opportunity, just just being just being ready and trying
Speaker 5: to take advantage of that moment.
Speaker 2: You aren't far from home, as you alluded to. How
Speaker 2: have friends and family reacted to this news? Really surprised?
Speaker 5: Yeah, super, they're super excited.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: Obviously, my wife is super excited to be back here.
Speaker 5: You know, we met it up here and just excited
Speaker 5: to be back.
Speaker 2: Have the Bengals giving you any indication of what your
Speaker 2: role might be?
Speaker 1: Are they?
Speaker 2: Did they tell you they're likely to keep two on
Speaker 2: the active roster, another person on the practice squad or
Speaker 2: what kind of info did you get from them?
Speaker 1: Not a ton of info on that.
Speaker 5: Just really trying to come in here each and every
Speaker 5: day and learn my teammates and you know, learn this
Speaker 5: offense as quickly as possible, and try to find myself
Speaker 5: a role.
Speaker 2: We'll certainly be throwing to some great targets. That has
Speaker 2: to be appealing, I would think to anybody looking to
Speaker 2: play quarterback in the NFL.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, great group of skill receivers and obviously running
Speaker 5: backs tight ends. So super sided to continue to meet
Speaker 5: all these guys and continue.
Speaker 3: To work with them.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, appreciate your time, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Woodside has played very well in NFL preseason games and
Speaker 2: in a stint with the San Antonio commanders of the
Speaker 2: now defunct AAF.
Speaker 1: That's going to do it.
Speaker 2: For This episode of the Bengals Booth pot brought to
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Speaker 2: more Bengals fans find us. I'm Dan Hord and thanks
Speaker 2: for listening to The Bengals Booth Podcast