Aidan Hutchinson solidifies his top-3 status at the NFL combine

Michigan football’s Aidan Hutchinson stood out at the NFL combine and helped himself in his quest to become the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft. 

We finally got to witness the moment scouts, GMs, and Michigan football fans waited for on Saturday when Aidan Hutchinson finally participated in the NFL Combine.

Basically, all he needed to do was make sure he didn’t completely flop his drills. He didn’t do that, and he pretty much solidified himself as a top-3 prospect.

The only drill he didn’t do was the bench press, which, out of all of the drills, I’m surprised he opted out of that because we all know he is very strong.

He probably would’ve put up 25+ reps. Maybe it was just a precautionary measure to make sure he didn’t accidentally pull a muscle.

Speaking of arms, the only “concerns” scouts tend to have with Hutch is his lack of true bend around the edges (although he was bendier doing the drills than I thought he would be).

Lastly, teams have concerns about his arm length, (which is probably the biggest concern) and he measured in at 32.5 inches, which is one if, if not the shortest arm length out of all of the edges.

He’s pretty much a T-Rex, big body, little arms, but if you guys know anything about the T-Rex, it’s that the animal makes up for its lack of arm length with its violence and its bite.

We all know that Aidan has both of those traits, so the arm length isn’t concerning to me. He still produced in college, and for comparison, Nick Bosa (who Aidan gets compared to as an NFL prototype) only has 33-inch arms, so there’s not a huge difference there.

These are Nick Bosa’s measurements coming out at the 2019 NFL Draft (for comparison, Aidan’s measurements chart is a little lower in this article):

The other main thing was the 40-time, which Aidan did solid on. He ran a 4.75 which is great for his height and weight, and the main thing that stuck out, and is actually more important, was his 10-yard split (the ability to cover 10 yards north to south in a straight line) which was an exceptional 1.62 seconds, which was the same as Kayvon Thibodeaux, his main competition to be drafted higher.

Here’s him running the 40:

By the way, his time in the three-come drill (6.73 seconds) was the best among all edge players and third-best among all players no matter the position, trailing only two very fast WRs in Calvin Austin Jr. and Kevin Austin Jr. Aidan who ran the fastest three-cone drill for a player 6’5 or over since 2003.

As for his shuttle run, it was the second-fastest, trailing only Kevin Austin, who is 11 inches smaller and 90 pounds lighter than him.

Here are a few more videos of his on-field drills:

https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1500251746173661184?s=20&t=t6QKD5uPLCLnSAeJEaSjrQ

Him showing that Wolverine speed and power:

Him going through his bag of pass-rushing tricks:

Listen, Hutchinson is admittedly not the sexiest prospect in terms of flash or anything, but you can’t deny his heart and motor. He does what works, and he does it extremely well, even if it is viewed as unorthodox or weird from the outside. The guy is a go-getter. That, in itself, will appeal to any team and is a big reason why he’s viewed as a consensus top 3 pick.

Everyone can improve, and just imagine what some more seasoning and refinement on some of his moves and technique could do for him in the NFL. With the proper coaching, he will be one of, if not the best prospect in the 2022 class, there’s no question.

Overall, Aidan finished with a 9.86 RAS (Relative Athletic Score) out of 10. That would put him at #20 out of 1,389 edge prospects (who came through the combine from 1987-2022). RAS, if you didn’t know, measures how a player’s size and athletic traits compared to all other players at that position. So yeah, the athletic traits are definitely there.

We’ll have more coverage of all of Michigan football’s NFL combine prospects: David Ojabo, Chris Hinton, Hassan Haskins, Andrew Stueber, Daxton Hill, Josh Ross, and Vincent Gray all did combine drills, so, there’s more coverage to come soon. Also, the players still have the Pro Day to look forward to as well.

Michigan fans, did you watch the combine? How did Aidan look to you? What other Michigan players were you impressed with? What other non-Michigan guys impressed you? Sound off in the comments below!