Short arms raise questions for Rueben Bain Jr., but his disruptive strength could make him a steal for a team willing to bet on his game.
One of the big stories coming out of the first day of the NFL Scouting Combine was disappointment surrounding Miami Hurricanes edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr., who is (was?) expected to be a top 5 pick in most mock drafts that I've seen.
To be fair, Bain didn't do anything wrong. They just measured his arms and decided that they're shorter than they should be.
Per ESPN's Matt Miller:
Arm length was the topic of the day, as Bain (30 7/8 inches) and Texas A&M's Cashius Howell (30 1/4) measured under 31 inches. According to ESPN Research, those lengths would be the shortest for any defensive lineman drafted in the first round since ESPN started tracking combine data in 2003.
Will NFL general managers bet that they're outliers? I've talked to a few teams that had slightly different measurements, ranging up to 32 inches for Bain, but the point stands that no edge rusher with sub-31-inch arms has had 10-plus sacks in a season since 1999. So which team will bet against those numbers? The likely result is that each falls from their current rankings based on film -- Bain is my No. 10 prospect and Howell my No. 23 -- but it's unlikely that either falls out of Round 1.
Considering that stat about performance tied to other edge rushers with less-than-long arms, I understand that NFL teams will probably be dropping Bain down their own big boards. I think that's their loss.
Bain isn't a freak athlete in college that will seem pedestrian once he's in the NFL. From what I have seen, Bain is a freak athlete that understands his own strengths and weaknesses very well.
Instead of trying to use his arms to create space between himself and the offensive lineman he's up against, Bain will often go the other way and use his short wingspan to his advantage, getting body-to-body with the blocker and using his elite strength to push them out of his way.
Graybeards like myself will remember the "Does arm length matter for a pass rusher?" conversation that followed the Chargers using the 16th overall pick in the 2009 NFL Draft on Larry English. He never finished a season with more than 3 sacks. English had more impressive college stats but was in a much less competitive conference.
Should he fall all the way to #22 in the 1st round, I do think the Chargers would be able to replace some of the loss of Khalil Mack and/or Odafe Oweh by using that pick on Rueben Bain Jr., no matter how long his arms are.