The NFL Combine produces a week of numbers that travel fast. Forty times trend on social media within seconds of the clock stopping, and broad jump results get debated before the prospect has left the field.
For fantasy managers, the real question is which of those numbers predict production and which ones are noise dressed up in spandex. The answer varies by position, and getting it right can meaningfully improve a rookie draft board or dynasty acquisition strategy.
Why Combine Data Matters at All
The case for paying attention to Combine metrics starts with what they measure directly: physical traits that translate to on-field function. Speed, explosiveness, agility, and strength are not abstract qualities at the NFL level. They determine whether a running back can threaten the perimeter, whether a tight end can create separation against linebackers, and whether a wide receiver can sustain a route stem long enough to get open downfield.
The Combine does not tell you how a player processes a defense or responds to coaching, but it does quantify the physical raw material that underpins every on-field decision. Used correctly, athletic testing functions as a tiebreaker between similarly evaluated prospects and as a filter that raises or lowers conviction on players whose film alone leaves questions unanswered.
Running Backs: Broad Jump and the Weight-Adjusted 40
Running back is the position where Combine data is most predictive once you move past the raw 40-yard dash time. Research covering the last decade of RB1 fantasy finishers shows that 26 of 34 running backs who achieved an RB1 season had a broad jump score of 115 inches or better. Not a single running back who finished below 115 in the broad jump has managed an elite fantasy season, making that threshold one of the more reliable hard floors in Combine analysis.
Speed Score, a weight-adjusted metric developed by Bill Barnwell, is more predictive than raw 40 time because it accounts for the physical size of the player. A 215-pound back running a 4.48 is delivering something materially different from a 185-pound back posting the same clock. Of 34 RB1 seasons in the last decade, 15 prospects ran a 40-yard dash of 4.5 seconds or better, and the ideal body profile for a workhorse back sits between 5-9 and 5-11 with 205 to 220 pounds on the frame.
Mike Washington Jr. of the 2026 class posted elite marks in the 40-yard dash, Speed Score, vertical jump, and broad jump, a combination that historically only two running backs have achieved simultaneously, drawing comparisons to a Breece Hall archetype.
Wide Receivers: The Shuttle Test as the Best Predictor
Wide receiver is the position where Combine data is most reliably predictive of fantasy success, but the metric that matters most is not the 40-yard dash. Of the 32 wide receivers who achieved a WR1 fantasy finish over the last decade, 13 had a shuttle time of 4.17 seconds or better, a 40 percent correlation that holds up as one of the stronger position-specific benchmarks in Combine research.
The 4.19-second shuttle mark has been established as a reliable standard: of 93 prospects who hit that threshold, a meaningful share went on to at least WR2-level production. The shuttle measures agility, acceleration, and cardio fitness simultaneously, qualities that receivers use on every route.
A receiver who runs a slow 40 and tests poorly in agility drills has a genuine athleticism problem. One who runs a slightly disappointing 40 but dominated college production against quality defenses is a much smaller concern.
Tight Ends: The Broad Jump and Speed Thresholds
Tight end is the position where Combine data produces some of the starkest cutoffs for fantasy evaluation. Among tight ends with a 40-yard dash of 4.81 seconds or slower, only one of 47 prospects in the historical dataset produced a TE1 season. Of 51 tight ends who posted a broad jump of 115 inches or lower, only one achieved a TE1 outcome.
The vertical jump cutoff at 30 inches is equally severe: of the 20 tight ends who finished at or below that mark, none recorded a TE1 season. The 3-cone cutoff at 7.13 seconds or slower produced only three TE1 seasons among 69 tight ends in that range.
At the 2026 Combine, Eli Stowers and Kenyon Sadiq delivered elite marks across the 40-yard dash, vertical jump, and broad jump. Sadiq blazed a 4.39 in the 40, placing him in historical company with Kyle Pitts at 4.44 and Evan Engram at 4.42, both of whom produced multiple TE1 seasons.
How Fantasy Tools Integrate Combine Metrics Into Projections
The way athletic testing feeds into fantasy projections is not a simple lookup of Combine scores against a production table. Platforms that build serious rookie projections combine Combine percentile rankings with draft capital, landing spot, team context, and college production into weighted composite scores.
Using a tool like an NFL optimizer to build weekly lineups draws on those same athletic ceiling assumptions embedded in each player’s base projection, while usage data, snap counts, and target share update the near-term output.
The Relative Athletic Score available at ras.football is the fastest publicly accessible tool for getting a position-adjusted, percentile-calibrated read on a prospect’s overall athleticism, and it is one of the inputs that feeds into dynasty platforms and weekly DFS optimizers alike.
Draft Capital as the Overriding Variable
The single most important finding from a decade of Combine research is that draft capital is more predictive of early-career fantasy production than any individual athletic metric.
Among running backs taken in Round 1, 90th-percentile and above athletes averaged roughly 66 percent more peak production than those in the 50th percentile and below, but the round itself still carries more predictive weight than the testing score. Teams give carries, targets, and playing time to players on whom they have spent significant draft resources.
Of the 15 quarterbacks in one historical sample of strong Combine performers, 12 were first-round picks, with Jalen Hurts, Dak Prescott, and Brock Purdy as the only non-first-rounders in the group, and all three required unique circumstances to reach their current production levels. Draft capital does not replace Combine data in prospect evaluation, but it sits above it in the hierarchy of predictive inputs.
The Limits of Combine Data and the Balanced Evaluation Approach
Combine data produces probabilities, not certainties. Kyren Williams and Bucky Irving are recent outlier examples of running backs who tested below athletic thresholds but found their way into large roles and delivered meaningful fantasy production. Mark Andrews is the most cited outlier among tight ends, appearing as the lone TE1 to defy the broad jump and 40-yard dash cutoffs in historical datasets.
College production, especially against strong defenses across multiple seasons, has historically been one of the strongest predictors of NFL fantasy success, and a bad Combine performance should raise questions and prompt harder evaluation rather than eliminate a prospect from a board entirely.
The safest framework for using Combine data is as one weighted input among several: let it sharpen conviction on players where multiple evaluation methods converge, and let it serve as a flag on players where it sharply contradicts the film, draft capital, and college production picture.