William Jackson III and Jordan Willis’ athleticism compared to top NFL players

The best players in the NFL at their respective positions are not always the supreme athletes. But athletic testing results are becoming increasingly noticeable in regards to why certain players fail, and why some succeed. Luckily, the Cincinnati Bengals seem to be on the right side of this trend.

2016 first-round cornerback William Jackson III and 2017 third-round defensive end Jordan Willis are the Bengals two highest-drafted defensive players of their last three drafts. Draft status is one indicator as far as high expectations and passing athletic thresholds for players of similar draft status is another thing entirely. Looking at both Jackson and Willis’ athletic profiles compared to other players of similar talent level (in the the form of draft status) and athleticism coming out of college, it’s clear to see the upside that comes with investing in athleticism and how much that matters early in the draft.

Let’s begin with Jackson. In the weeks leading up to the draft, Bleacher Report’s Justis Mosqueda found Jackson was one of 11 first-round cornerbacks to pass certain athletic thresholds. The company he is in is quite impressive:

The Bengals have drafted three cornerbacks in the first round since Leon Hall, who just so happens to be listed here. 2012 first-round pick Dre Kirkpatrick had a bumpy start to his career but has rounded out at least some consistency to his game to now be classified as a passable starting level corner. 2014 first-round pick Darqueze Dennard has had even less starts in his first three years than Kirkpatrick did, and is still vying for a starting spot after showing erratic play to start his career. Neither cornerback tested as fast or flexible as Jackson, and that’s why it’s rational to be optimistic when considering the 2016 first rounder. All three were drafted around the same spot in their respective classes, but only one tested at the level of certain high quality players.

Jackson is in good company with this list, but we can take a step further and set the height threshold at 5’11” and set the 40 yard dash threshold at 4.40, to more accurately depict a proper list for Jackson:

Of this list, Jackson has both the lowest broad jump and slowest short shuttle. He’s fast and tall, but his explosion and overall flexibility isn’t quite at that level. I decided to take this further to see if that’s worrisome.

Here’s a list of every cornerback who made an AP All-Pro team at the age of 30 or under from 2007-2016. I only listed a player once; when he made his first All-Pro team in this timeframe:

You can see why cornerbacks tend to go off the board in bunches early on. It’s very rare to get a high quality cornerback late in the draft, and it’s imperative that team’s continually draft cornerbacks. The trends are pretty clear among the best cornerbacks in the league: 40 yard dash times lower than the 4.5 range, 3-cone times lower than seven seconds, and broad jump distances longer than 120”.

The short shuttle times don’t seem to carry much correlation here. Just like there are a few cornerbacks with sub 120” broad jumps, there a some with short shuttles in the high 4.2 range as well as the 4.3 range. For first-round talents like Jackson, Joe Haden, former Bengal Johnathan Joseph and Aqib Talib all had relatively high times. But it should be said that first-round selections such as Darrelle Revis, Carlos Rogers and Champ Bailey all turned out to be great players at their peak and that elite flexibility shown by their fast short shuttle times most definitely had something to do with their top tier ability.

For added measures, I went to look specifically at the top 15 graded cornerbacks from the NFL 1000 project from Bleacher Report:

Most of these players were already on the All-Pro list, but some new names appeared as well. Xavier Rhodes is the obvious outlier in terms of flexibility, but he is turning into one of the more well rounded corners in the game regardless, thanks to his tremendous speed and explosion. The trend is pretty much the same with the short shuttle, with the average being right around 4.14 with a few outliers here and there.

Darius Slay is probably the best comparison to Jackson of all these corners in terms of athleticism and draft status. Slay tested with similar 40 yard dash and 3-cone times at about the same mass density as Jackson, yet both were underwhelming in the short shuttle. Slay signed a four year extension last summer with the Lions that’ll pay him $12 million dollars per year, making him the 10th highest paid cornerback, and he’s earned it with his play.

Transitioning to Willis now, his athletic profile was clean at every aspect, but athleticism for line of scrimmage players needs to be looked at with mass density in mind. For space players like cornerbacks, fast is fast, agile is agile. When you take into account that defensive ends are trying to win with force on every snap and are involved in dozens of collisions per game, being a great athlete with great size means more than just being a great athlete. If you win the battle of force, you win the rep more times than not. Being able to deliver a quality amount of force while still possessing quality athleticism is the ideal scenario.

I went and looked for the same type of thresholds for Willis and other pass rushers as Mosqueda did for cornerbacks. Here are the pass rushers drafted in the first three rounds from 2007 to this year’s draft class who are at least 6’2 1/2” tall, ran at most a 4.65 40 yard dash, and ran at most a 7.05 second 3-cone time:

It’s far from a perfect system, but I looked at the best players in terms of speed and flexibility relative to their mass density. The speed score is calculated by comparing their density by their 40 yard dash time. Who carries the most force and who can move the best with it? The flexibility score is calculated by comparing their density by their 3-cone and short shuttle times, weighed evenly. The speed flexibility score is the average of the two.

Justin Houston sits at the top of the list because he had the most mass density of the listed players and still tested very fast and flexible. This is why Willis is also up there. Willis ranks ahead of prolific pass rushers like Von Miller, Vic Beasley and Clay Matthews by these specific metrics. If there was ever any doubt, this is just based on athleticism. This is only comparing the pass rushers who have met the necessary thresholds as well, so being at the bottom of the list is not an indictment.

Looking at the non-rookies, almost all of them were talented and technically refined enough to be drafted early and developed into productive pass rushers. The elite athleticism is what puts the great players over the decent ones. The third-round picks of the group like Willis: Houston, Cliff Avril and Danielle Hunter, have all enjoyed one season with at least 11 sacks in their careers. I believe Avril and Connor Barwin are the best athletic comparisons to Willis, and Willis was far more productive than both of them. Of course expecting production equal to these two from the start isn’t realistic, because Willis won’t be starting this year and he still has some ways to go as a pass rusher as far as counter moves. But once that clicks, the athleticism can give him an edge.

A big theme for the Bengals this year was to get younger and faster on defense. With Jackson and Willis ready to contribute in some capacity, the team is off to a very good start.