2024 NFL Draft: How three trends in pro football connect to this year's prospect class

Professional football is constantly evolving. An ongoing chess match between offensive and defensive play callers brings different schemes into and out of fashion, and as this happens, the profiles of players coming into the league morph, reflecting changes to the game at lower levels and impacting the composition of each position group.

With the 2024 NFL Draft around the corner, the Next Gen Stats team examined a few key trends that can tell us where the game is going and how teams might value prospects in this year's class.

At the NFL Scouting Combine earlier this year, Texas receiver Xavier Worthy put on an electrifying display of speed, setting a new record in the 40-yard dash with a time of 4.21 seconds. The exhilarating performance of the 165-pounder highlights the trend of prospects becoming lighter and faster, especially at his position.

Since 2003, wide receivers participating in the combine have run increasingly faster in the 40-yard dash, but no receiver class has been quicker than the 2024 crew, which just set the event on fire. In fact, the class clocked the fastest average 40 time (4.44) of any WR group over the last two decades. It's important to note that not every NFL hopeful participates in the combine or in every drill; this year, for example, top prospects Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers both skipped testing. Only 30 receivers ran the 40 at the combine in 2024, the second fewest by any WR class since 2003. That said, nine of them (30 percent) ran it in under 4.40 seconds; that's the highest percentage by any receiver class.

When analyzing speed, it is also crucial to factor in weight. In addition to being the fastest receiver class, the 2024 crop is the second lightest, averaging 196.1 pounds --