The Dynasty Football Outlook for David Bell in Cleveland

Now that the NFL draft has concluded and players are finally on rosters, it is time for rookie drafts to commence. As you navigate your league drafts, I want to draw your attention to a specific player with a productive college career that slipped into the third round of the NFL draft.

David Bell.

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With the 99th overall selection, the Cleveland Browns took a chance on the 6’1, 221lb wideout from Purdue University. If you did not watch a lot of Boilermaker football this college football season then what you have likely heard about Bell is related to his poor showing at the NFL combine. I'm here to stop the David Bell slander, and explain why he could be a value in rookie drafts with both immediate and long-term production.

Bell at the NFL Combine

Let’s just address the big hairy elephant in the room right away. David Bell is slow. He did not have a good NFL combine. Bell ran a sluggish 4.65 40-yard dash at the combine and his pro-day. Coming into the pre-draft process there were questions about Bell's athleticism. He did not do anything to stifle these concerns, combining his poor 40 time with a broad jump and vertical jump that amongst all WRs ranked in the 35th percentile. Bell was given a Relative Athletic Score (RAS) of 4.02 - a number that gauges how athletic an NFL prospect is compared to others at this position.

For his poor testing, Bell paid the price, as he trickled into the 3rd round. However, post-draft Bell’s combine testing is no longer a factor. 4for4’s very own Rob Lorge wrote a piece on “Biggest Draft Steals of the NFL Draft” and highlighted that there is no relationship between NFL success for receivers and their athleticism. In fact, what RAS can be helpful with is predicting draft capital. Since 2017 the average RAS for WRs selected in the first four rounds of the NFL draft was 7.7. Bell fell in the NFL draft because of his poor athleticism, however now that he has been selected, using his combine scores against him is double counting. The draft is where these scores were going to affect him and he came out the other side with a Day 2 selection.

David Bell's College Production

Something that is actually predictable for NFL success is what a player does in college, and David Bell has one of the best collegiate profiles in this class.

He burst onto the college scene in his true freshman season with over 1,000 receiving yards and seven TDs over 12 games. It was during Bell’s freshman season that he “broke out” (a term used for college WRs when they post a dominator rating >20%.) Dominator rating represents how involved a player was in his team’s offense and is a way to quantify the percentage of the team’s offensive production the player is responsible for. The younger the breakout age, the more likely that player excels in the NFL. David Bell’s breakout age in college was 18.7 which ranks in the 94th percentile amongst all WRs in the database per PlayerProfiler.com

To give you an idea of how impressive Bell’s Dominator Rating was early in his collegiate career, here is how he compared to other WRs in the 2022 class that were selected in the first round.

Even later in his career, when opposing defenses knew that David Bell was going to get the ball, they could not stop him. Especially during his junior season, as the Boilermaker’s peppered Bell with targets all game long and he still found ways to separate and make plays time and time again. There was nothing flashy about this game, but David Bell ran crisp routes, leveraged his body, and was as sure-handed as they come in college. Even as his peers were starting to develop, Bell still ranked in the upper tier in yards per team per play. Below is how Bell again compared to the other wideouts that were drafted in Round 1.