How NFL Next Gen Stats and AWS are Modernizing NFL Scouting Combine Analysis
By — Front Office Sports
Posted — March 19, 2025
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In the early days of the NFL Scouting Combine, evaluation was a meticulous, hands-on process. A few scouts with clipboards, a cluster of coaches with stopwatches, and a series of drills formed the foundation for assessing raw athleticism. Teams relied on keen observation, instincts, and experience to interpret a player’s potential.
The approach required skill and dedication, but it was inherently limited by the manual nature of what the eye could see and the hand could time. Now, in an era where data is king, evaluating football’s next great talents demands a more sophisticated approach.
With the NFL Combine IQ, powered by AWS technology, that future is here.
The modern NFL Combine captures every movement with a sophisticated network of sensors tracking athletes ten times per second across the entire field. Every cut, stride, and weight shift is recorded with microscopic precision, revealing aspects of performance that traditional scouting methods might overlook.
The challenge, of course, is turning over hundreds of thousands of data points into something digestible. A defensive back’s reaction time in coverage drills, for example, is more than just an eye test.
Previously, scouting reports might note “fluid hips” or a “quick first step,” but now, with Next Gen Stats, that fluidity is quantified.
How many milliseconds does it take for a player to shift weight and react to a route? How does that compare to elite benchmarks?
Enter the NFL Next Gen Stats Draft Score, a 50-99 rating system that simplifies complex athletic measurements into a single, intuitive number. A data-driven complement to traditional scouting, it allows teams, analysts, and fans to compare prospects on an even playing field. Say a linebacker clocks in with a Draft Score of 87.
That number isn’t arbitrary—it factors in speed, agility, reaction time, explosiveness, and comparisons to past and present prospects at his position.
No more guessing whether a 4.42-second 40-yard dash is good for a running back versus a defensive lineman. The score provides context, backed by decades of NFL Combine data.
The Combine IQ dashboard represents a quantum leap in how we share NFL Combine data with fans and analysts. For the first time, we're able to provide real-time insights that previously were only available to professional scouts and team personnel. That's the power we're putting in fans' hands.
Mike Brand, Senior Manager at NFL Next Gen Stats
At the core of this shift is Amazon QuickSight, enabling the Combine IQ dashboard to process vast amounts of data instantly while supporting over 100,000 concurrent users. Fans can watch the Combine unfold in real-time and immediately see how prospects stack up against historical benchmarks.
Is this year’s top QB prospect showing the same athleticism as Josh Allen? How does a receiver’s shuttle time compare to Tyreek Hill’s?
But processing this much data is only part of the equation. Making it digestible—turning raw numbers into something that resonates with both casual fans and seasoned scouts—requires a new level of visualization. That’s where Amazon Quicksight comes in, allowing for a richer, more interactive experience.
For now, though, football fans get a front-row seat to the future of scouting. The NFL Scouting Combine is no longer just a showcase of raw athleticism—it’s a laboratory where performance is measured, analyzed, and understood with unprecedented depth. The stopwatch era is over. The data era has arrived.
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“The Combine IQ dashboard represents a quantum leap in how we share NFL Combine data with fans and analysts,” said Mike Brand Senior Manager at NFL Next Gen Stats. “For the first time, we're able to provide real-time insights that previously were only available to professional scouts and team personnel. That's the power we're putting in fans' hands.”
Beyond individual player performance, the implications of this technology extend far beyond the NFL Combine. With scalable data visualization capabilities, AWS technology ensures that sports organizations, media outlets, and even casual fans can interact with the data in ways never before possible.
And this is just the beginning. The same AWS-powered innovations transforming NFL scouting can be applied across major sports leagues, international competitions, and even individual athlete training. The applications across industries are limitless.
Player headshots are embedded into visualizations, creating instant recognition and stronger connections between athletes and their metrics. Metrics adjust dynamically based on position: an edge rusher’s burst speed and bend angle take precedence, while a wide receiver’s route-running efficiency and catch radius move to the forefront. Users can even compare multiple players side by side, with the dashboard automatically highlighting key differences, making scouting a more fluid and insightful process than ever before.
It turns data into a story.
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