MISS vs. MAKE – Leveraging Comparative Personality Data for Enhanced NFL Draft Strategies
The NFL combine represents the opportunity to scout hundreds of players, many of which will become part of an NFL team's plans for at least the next 3–5 years.
Our goal at Mental Metrix is to help organizations understand the mental makeup of their draft prospects — from at the top of the draft through free-agency — to build the most competitive, cohesive roster. We can help organizations find the needle in the haystack that becomes the next All-Pro (re: someone like Kurt Warner).
Further, we can help save you time and energy with more effective onboarding as a result of cohesive player comp analysis. We do this all through a unique approach to understanding objective, quantifiable personality data. Learn more about our process.
To showcase this, we’ve examined two sample sets of players. Because teams are looking down the road with many of their draftees, we’ve done a retrospective of athletes who are either on, or hoping to get, a second contract/contract extension. We gathered personality data on 30 of the top performers from the 2019-202 drafts to understand the mental makeup of that cluster. (Curious if any of your guys are on our list? Schedule time to meet us at the Combine.) Similarly, we’ve collected data for 30 of the top prospects from this draft class.
The Process
Selection Criteria
We chose 3 players per position group (Quarterback, Runningbacks, Receivers, Tight Ends, Offensive Line, Defensive Line, Linebacker, Safety, Cornerback, Punters/Kickers) for both sets. All of the athletes selected have proven to be contributors to their respective teams.
NFL Player Details
Productive on field
Played all years
Stayed on their team
Pro-Bowler and/or All-Pro
Draft Player Details
All are All-Americans
All played in Power Five conferences
All won their Bowl Game
Analysis
Mental Metrix personality reports provide a holistic view of the person — we’ve collected data on each athlete across time and setting. We compiled language from the offseason, mid-week interviews, and gameday. Each athlete was analyzed with the same number of video sources and averaged a similar number of words.
Why This Matters
Our goal is to help you build the highest performing, most cohesive team. Let’s recognize there are many talented individuals from a physical standpoint who may fit a team’s scheme and football principles. What happens when there is a group that all physically fit your needs, but within that talent pool there are large variations within their mental makeup? Think back to the 2017 draft class and compare Mitchell Trubisky and Patrick Mahomes physical comps, for instance. How do you, without hindsight, make the best draft pick?
There are a number of ways to gain a sense of who an athlete is as an individual, but having objective, robust data to understand from the mental side of your evaluations is the necessary complement to the physical metrics that are more clearly apparent to the naked eye.
How to use this Data
There are two clear use-cases from this analysis.
Better-informed draft picks with the aid of personality comps
Narrowing your selection pool to the talent that best fits your goals and priorities.
Personality Comps = Better-Informed Draft Picks
If you knew you had a QB draft prospect on your shortlist whose personality profile closely aligned to either Jalen Hurts, Justin Herbert, or Joe Burrow, how would that impact your draft strategy?
To highlight the impact personality comps can play in building your roster, we’ve compared personality data of two groups of quarterbacks — 3 drafted between 2019 – 2021 and 3 prospects from the 2024 draft class.
The first image shows three veteran QBs.
Think you can correctly identify the rightful owner of each personality? Schedule a meeting with us at the 2024 Combine.
The cluster of personality data among QBs is pretty tight, though there is some variation. One obvious outlier in the data is on how ambitious one of our veteran QBs is compared to his peers.
The second image shows 3 draft prospects from the 2024 class.
Similar to the veterans, this cluster of personality markers are close across all traits and facets.
When extracted, though, one of the candidates from this year looks strikingly similar to a top candidate from a previous draft class.
Identifying physical comps is a hallmark of the draft evaluation. Yet, having just the data related to a physical comp isn’t enough to build your bench.
By having a mental makeup comp, there is a compound on the return of the effort invested in the evaluation process. So again, if you knew a QB prospect on your short list had a personality map similar to a well-respected veteran, how does that impact your draft strategy?
Narrowing Your Selection Pool
You read in our last newsletter that a mere 0.1 seconds separates the first fastest 40-yard dash to the 10th fastest 40-yard dash. Once you get to the combine, you’re going to get top talent. It’s finding the right talent for your team that is critical to your overall success. For this example, let’s study the offensive linefrom both the 2019–2021 and 2024 draft classes.
At quick glance, you can see there are significant differences between the 3 offensive linemen of both classes. We see the largest variation between the athletes in both segments across Extraversion and its subtraits. As you focus on the 2019–2021 draft classes, we see the largest differences between the subtraits of Caution, Cheerfulness, Impulsiveness, and Stress Propensity. From the 2024 class, we see the largest differences between Caution, Cheerfulness, Assertiveness, and Ambition. There are similarities within each group — all three from previous draft classes show similar measures in imagination, where the 2024 draft class shows similarities in how disciplined each are.
Understanding the personality dynamics of players when your physical talent is close is the difference between a team that performs at the highest level and a group of individuals with talent but can’t quite pull it all together. Misalignment on communication and lockerroom dynamics can be the difference between sooner-than desired cut versus contract extension. Knowing this going into the draft can only improve your long-term planning.
The remaining margin for building highly competitive, cohesive teams rests in understanding personality and developing that talent accordingly. Let Mental Metrix support your roster-building with the addition of quantifiable, objective, comparable personality data.
Want to unlock the names showcased in our investigation? Schedule time to see us at the combine!
