Relative Athletic Score: Know About The NFL Combine Player Evaluation Tool

You’ll hear more about Relative Athletic Score as the Combine gets closer (or RAS for short). RAS, an invention of Kent Lee Platte, is a method of comparing a player’s athletic tests to their size and past performance. During our interview with Kent for “The Draft Countdown” Podcast last week, we learned more about RAS and how it can be used to assess a prospect’s athleticism.

Relative Athletic Score: Know About The NFL Combine Player Evaluation Tool

RAS reduces a prospect’s combine performance to a single, straightforward statistic. It’s a useful tool for assessing athletes generally, but it’s not the end-all and be-all for NFL clubs or the prospects that work out in Indianapolis.

What is RAS and how does it function? Take note of these:

What is Relative Athletic Score?

Relative Athletic Score (RAS), a measure created by Kent Lee Platte, is a figure that, on a scale of 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest), combines all of a player’s NFL Combine measurements, including height, weight, wingspan, hand size, athletics, and drill performance (highest). To ensure that positions are evaluated fairly against one another, the measure additionally considers position. Thus, the name’s “Relative” component.

RAS is a helpful tool for analysts and draught enthusiasts since it allows them to compare a figure to previous estimates made by combine participants since 1987.

For instance, Travon Walker, the first overall pick in 2022, had a 9.99 RAS, which is tied for second all-time for NFL players at his position.

RAS obviously doesn’t predict who will or won’t be a good NFL player because it only considers a prospect’s pure physical qualities, not their football knowledge. The Chiefs picked Brian Johnston, who received a perfect 10 RAS, in the seventh round of the 2008 NFL Draft. Before being released, he appeared in just nine games with Kansas City.

On the other hand, players with low RAS can develop into top performers. Tom Brady achieved an overall score of 1.49 and was a respectable player.

Best, worst Relative Athletic Scores

A listing of 10 of the highest all-time RAS:

Rank Player Position Draft year RAS All-time score
1 Ernie Conwell FB 1996 10.00 10.00
2 Jarrod Cooper SS 2001 10.00 10.00
3 Justin Fargas RB 2003 10.00 10.00
4 Calvin Johnson WR 2007 10.00 10.00
5 Brian Johnston DE 2008 10.00 10.00
6 David Buehler K 2009 10.00 10.00
7 Joe Webb WR 2010 9.99 10.00
8 Cam Newton QB 2011 10.00 10.00
9 Brandon Brooks OG 2012 9.98 10.00
10 Byron Jones CB 2015 10.00 10.00

And 10 of the worst all-time RAS ever recorded:

Rank Player Position Draft year RAS All-time score
1 Stanley Flanders WR 1995 0.03 0.01
2 Niklas Kantonen TE 2020 0.00 0.01
3 Cedric Nettles SS 2017 0.00 0.01
4 Hunter Hughes QB 2018 0.00 0.01
5 Johnny Jones LB 2018 0.01 0.01
6 Mitch Norman OG 2018 0.00 0.01
7 Bentley Easley DT 2019 0.00 0.01
8 Claudio Buccalletto DE 2020 0.00 0.01
9 Igor Timotijevic DT 2020 0.02 0.01
10 Stephane Fortes WR 2020 0.02 0.01