Here’s Merlin…
Excerpt from a recent Athletic article:
“Since 2015 — that’s when we started our internal scouting system, called ‘JARS’, we have 5,000 different defensive backs that we have (measurables) on,” said Jake Temme, who is a data and analytics manager for the Rams. “And within our internal mechanism for doing weight-adjusted/athleticism (measurements) — called RSDI (Rams Standard Deviation Index) — he was in the top 10 percent for the cornerback position.”
In that five-year data span, the Rams, said Temme, found there were just four players who satisfied all of the following conditions they use to evaluate defensive backs within their database (which Temme discovered by programming a query of these conditions into the system): The player was drafted, the player was 5-foot-10 or taller, the player was equal to or heavier than 180 pounds, the player jumped 40-plus inches vertically in testing and the player broad-jumped 10 feet or more and the player ran a 4.40-second-or-less 40-yard-dash when averaged between six different times collected between official and unofficial recordings.
“Those four players are Jalen Ramsey, Obi Melifonwu, Derwin James and Robert Rochell,” Temme said. “Pretty rare guy, athletically, to get that late in the draft … I think, in particular, when you’re talking about a guy who we had a ton of scouting on, who then satisfies the physical conditions that we’re talking about — he was really exciting to be a Day 3 guy, a guy who we had basically circled after taking Ernest (Jones) at No. 103, saying, ‘This is a guy we’re going to target tomorrow.'”
