Could Dalvin Cook fall completely out of the first round of the NFL Draft? Past injury and legal concerns along a low SPARQ score could drop Cook’s stock significantly.
Alvin Kamara is at the top. Christian McCaffrey is nearly there, as is Marlon Mack. Zach Whitman keeps track of an formula originally developed by Nike to measure a player’s athleticism relative to everyone else in the NFL. It’s a quick way to compare players in the same way a passer rating (or WAR in baseball) would contribute to the conversation, another metric by which players can be evaluated, understood and ranked. You can read a complete breakdown of SPARQ and its application here.
For our purposes, the metric, when applied to the incoming draft class, has raised a significant red flag around one player often considered to be a first round lock and someone who resembles a young Jamaal Charles. Dalvin Cook is often mentioned alongside Leonard Fournette (and maybe McCaffrey) as running backs certain to go the earliest in the draft. Then suddenly, after NFL Combine drills had wrapped, Cook’s lackluster week suddenly exposed a potential issue: a very poor SPARQ score.
Basically, it’s saying that the team who takes Cook is going to do so on the basis of his game tape and not because of anything they saw in Indianapolis. Furthermore, they are ignoring any sort of concerns about his Combine performance and, consequently, also ignoring the outstanding performances of others like Kamara. Cook’s tape is definitely good enough to warrant this response, and it is important to note that SPARQ has its limitations. It’s just a measurement tool, no better or worse than others. However, it is enough to raise some concerns.
Cook also comes with some other concerns, so if anything valuable comes from Cook’s Combine appearance, it will be the personal interviews with teams. First of all, he must reassure teams that he is healthy after undergoing shoulder surgery last spring. He also faces legal concerns for his arrest two years ago for battery, although the charges were later dropped. If these negatives sound serious, they certainly are, so the fact that Cook is still considered a first round pick shows just how special he can be on the field.
Cook has rushed for 19 touchdowns in each of the last two seasons for the Florida State Seminoles along with a combined 3,256 rushing yards in that span, good for an average of 6.3 yards per carry. Considering the level of competition faced by Jimbo Fisher’s team, Cook’s numbers should showcase why teams are overlooking drills without pads on for the sake of his tremendous game tape.
Will Cook fall farther down some draft boards after the NFL Combine? Absolutely. Will it be out of the first round? Hard to tell. But if he’s there at No. 27 for the Chiefs, it’s going tbe hard for them to pass up a potential instant replacement for Charles.