Well, I'm not quite done the reseach I was doing to Agent Jerry Fletcher's question (and a couple of other MHR members) regarding how Pat Kirwan's Explosion Number and Production Ratio stand up against defensive line personnel that have been in the league awhile. I posted Who do you pick if you don't like Brockers, Cox, Still, or Worthy? to ask the aformentioned question and got a lot of others that had the same question I did, which was is how likely is a prospect to succeed can be based on his Explosion Number?

I really ran out of time on this project. I have to be back in camp tonight (about 250km or 150 miles away) for another 15 day stint and my 6 days off are over. So I am going to share the results I have so far and draw some quick conclusions.

I didn't have nearly the time to do this, I had to skip a lot of guys that were on my list out of deference to time, and I couldn't find combine measureables or college stats for the guys before 2004, so a lot of our favorite HOF and someday HOFers like Ray Lewis I couldn't get information for.

Quick thoughts, most of the top 20 on the list (I sorted according to Explosion Number) show that the Explosion number makes sense. Some on the list are questionable (you can certainly see why the Broncos drafted Tim Crowder out of Texas with a 71 EN and a 1.30 P.ratio - how looked good getting off the bus), some it's too soon to see like Stephen Paea, Marvin Austin and Brooks Reed, but J.J. Watt and Ryan Kerrigan look like the real thing.

It also shows the numbers can obfuscate, as in ranking Al Wilson, Jared Allen, Tamba Hali, Calais Campbell, Mathias Kiwanuka and others as low as they are, you almost have to throw out the EN and go entirely with their P.ratios as most of those guys were between 1.50 and 2.00+. As I look at this, I wish I had grouped the DTs together, then the DE's together, then the OLBs, and then the MLB/ILB and kept each group separate to analyze them. Obviously the same measureables that you want for a pass-rushing DE are not the same as those of a Cover 2 MLB.

There is enough data here to convince me that there is something to Pat's formulas, but they need to be taken in context with each individual, for instance, Clay Matthews has a nice 68 EN but a very low 0.49 p.ratio. If I remember correctly he didn't start at USC until his senior year, so although he played 39 games, he had almost no stats for the first two years, skewing his P.ratio number badly.

So, do with them what you will, maybe you can see something I missed and I look forward to your input.