Lawson, when he’s not on the bench press
In 2015, Clemson/Atlanta Falcon Vic Beasley was the bench press champion, using a formula involving expected bench press reps based on a player’s height and weight. That turned out to be pretty predictive of future success; on the other hand, last year’s winner was Nebraska fullback Andy Janovich, who wound up being a 6th round pick and a minor contributor as a rookie with the Broncos.
The best-fit formula to project bench press reps for the 2017 Combine was:
17.401 -0.3354 * Height (Inches) + 0.1075 * Weight (Pounds)
Using that formula, Garrett — at 76 inches and 272 pounds — would be projected to bench press 225 pounds for 21.1 reps. In reality, Garrett produced a whopping 33 reps, or 11.9 more than expected. The only way to top him was Auburn’s Carl Lawson, who measured at 74 inches and only 261 pounds. Being shorter is better, but being lighter is worse, and Lawson would be projected using the regression to have 20.6 reps on the bench press. Instead, he had 35, or 14.4 more than projected, easily the largest margin at the combine.
Oklahoma running back Samaje Perine had a remarkable 30 reps, 7 more than any other player at his position.
At the bottom of the list are a pair of tackles from power 5 schools in Sam Tevi and David Sharpe. At 311 pounds, Tevi somehow only put up 15 reps; the other players with 15 reps ranged from 180 pounds to 269 pounds. Sharpe was the 2nd heaviest player at the combine, but for comparison, five of the other seven heaviest players had at least 25 reps.
