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Over the last week or so, I have been analyzing the top performers at the combine in various drills. Today, I want to put it all together. Let’s use Northwestern fullback Dan Vitale as our example.

In the 40-yard dash, Vitale was expected to run it in 4.76 seconds, but instead ran it in 4.6 seconds. That gave him the 28th best score. Put another way, his 40-yard time was 1.18 standard deviations better than the average score, after adjusting for weight.

In the bench press, he was even better. putting up 30 reps, 10.4 more than would be expected given his height and weight. His Z-Score in that event — i.e., how many standard deviations above average he scored — was 2.56.

You might not think of a fullback as dominating in the Vertical Jump, but Vitale excelled here, too. Given his height and weight, he would have been expected to jump 32.6 inches. Instead, he bested that by 5.9 inches, making him the 8th biggest overacheiver in this drill, and 1.97 standard deviations above average.

Vitale was not quite as good in the Broad Jump, but he still ranked 31st by outjumping his projected by 7.8 inches and 1.29 standard deviations.

In the Short Shuttle, Vitale was once again very good, posting the 12th-best adjusted time, which gave him a Z-score of 1.71.

Finally, the 3-Cone drill was his worst, as he finished 62nd and just 0.59 standard deviations above average. Still, add it up, and Vitale was 9.30 standard deviations above average in all of the drills.

The table below shows the Z-Score for each prospect at the NFL combine in the drills identified above.

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