Good News for Will Campbell Fans: Study Proves That (O-Lineman Arm Length) Size Doesn't Matter. It's Science.
It's pretty clear by now that Will Campbell is coming to New England with the No. 4 pick tomorrow to protect Drake Maye's invaluable backside for the next 10 years or so. I mean, barring any unforeseen circumstances like Giants' ownership demanding Shedeur Sanders so they can win the all-important Tabloid Back Page Wars for the near future. Or a trade. Or a
Cordyceps Brain Infection taking over the Patriots war room. Virtually all of the mocks have the Pats taking Campbell, including Steven Cheah's. DraftKings has him as a heavy favorite, at -500. So it would appear the die is cast.
But as Campbell says in that clip, he's been dealing with the Short Arms question for his entire football life. And will continue to be, even after he's drafted. The Boston sports media has been like a dog with a bone on this topic all through the draft process. Even after it was revealed that number of 32 5/8" from the Combine was completely discredited at LSU's Pro Day, where again NFL people did the measuring and found him at the minimal accepted standard of 33.0":
To be fair, a lot of media types came around after that correction. Especially one particularly wise, astute and disarmingly handsome Patriots draft expert.
And for those of us who aren't merely resigned to drafting Campbell, but excited about finally plugging that massive gap on the left side of Drake Maye's last line of defense, I have good news. Something you can share with the last remaining holdouts among the doubters.
A few years ago, Nate Washuta Pro Football Focus did an analysis of this very question. And found no negative correlation between short(ish) arms and offensive line performance. Not even among left tackles:
Source (paywall) - [O]ne metric that has always perplexed me the most is the arm length of an offensive tackle.
It’s often argued that guys with longer arms are better able to keep defenders at bay and that a player with short arms simply can’t be successful. This is especially confusing when considering that there is no real consensus on what are considered “long” or “short” arms. I quite often see a scouting report where 34” arms are called long, while 33 ¼” arms are considered short by the same scouting service. Look at a ruler and measure out ¾ of an inch. Does it seem logical that such a small distance makes such a big difference in holding off defenders?
With that in mind, I decided to look at PFF data to see how much of a difference arm length truly makes in offensive lineman performance. If the popular narrative is correct, there should be a significant drop-off somewhere between 33 and 34 inches.
As a reminder, this analysis and the graphs included here are the sole IP of Nate Washuta and PFF. (The last data points I chartered were how much time my sons spent playing Call of Duty and Minecraft, respectively. And since they ignored by findings of "Way Too Much," I hung up my graph paper for good.) And it's quite a visual:
He continues. Emphasis, mine:
In this figure, I’ve included the PFF data of every offensive tackle that played over 25% of his team’s snaps in any season from 2010-2012 whose arm length I could find online. I’ve also plotted the data as PFF grade per 500 snaps so that guys with different amounts of snaps are directly comparable. With a linear fit, we actually see a negative correlation, where guys with longer arms perform worse in general. But as you can see from the R-squared value on the chart (1.00 is perfect, 0 means there is no correlation), the fit is pretty terrible, so there’s essentially no direct correlation between arm length and performance. Another interesting thing that you'll note is that about half of qualified tackles in the NFL have arms that are 34 inches or shorter. So not only are “short” arms not necessarily a disadvantage, but they're also not uncommon.
As far as whether, as Campbell suggests, that some personnel people he's spoken to suggested he's a guard in their system, Mike Vrabel has said categorically he considers Campbell a left tackle. Which is fine. Because the data is clear at that position specifically:
Looking at the left tackle chart, all but 4 of the qualified players had arms between 33 and 36 inches long. … Any way I break it down, there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between arm length and performance.
Quibble with PFF's grading system all you want. Call it subjective and argue it's not done by actual football people and therefore invalid. But I choose to trust the numbers.
As well as the scouting reports, Campbell's tape and the level of competition he faced. Mostly though, I'm putting my trust in the player himself, who will undoubtedly show up to One Patriots Place with a chip on his shoulder so massive that even his allegedly tiny little baby arms won't be able to knock it off. We need more guys like him. Just remember all this information as you deal with the doubters in the days and weeks to come. Thursday night can't come fast enough.