How Much Do Physical Attributes Matter for First-Round NFL Draft Picks?

July 3, 2015   ·   Rivers McCown   ·   Jump to comments

One thing I noticed while filing my Top 25 NFL Players Under 25 piece was just how many players in that top 25 qualified as physical outliers and how that affected their draft stock. 
Take the tale of Aaron Donald, who I consider the fourth-best player under 25 in the NFL today. Here's what NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock said about him as he was drafted: "The lack of size (6-foot-1, 285 pounds) concerns some teams, but not me. He had a really big week at the Senior Bowl. He's as quick a defensive tackle I've seen since Geno Atkins."
I don't put this forward as evidence that Donald should have been drafted higher—indeed, it was a victory for the NFL that they learned their mistake from the Geno Atkins pick and made Donald a first-round pick—but because it fits a pet theory that I've had ever since reading a piece on the analytical baseball site FanGraphs. 
FanGraphs' Kiley McDaniel pointed out that, as far as first-round picks go, the recent track r...

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