QUESTION: Hi Randy, my name is Alfred, love the content on your site. On your blog entry about our local star Kevin Thomson, you listed him as '6010,' is this a typo or is this a way to write out height?
Thank you for your time and hope to get an answer. - Alfred
ANSWER: Alfred, thank you for the question and thanks for visiting the site. The word “measureables” is not really a word but in NFL circles its used to package all of an athlete’s testing numbers and gathered measurements. - Height, weight, speed but also can include-hand, arm and wing, 3 cone and shuttle times. These are all common and consistent numbers collected at the Combine or at a pro day. They all get recorded the same way by every team.
Height is measured down to 8ths of an inch- i.e. when you see 6043 it equals… Six feet, 4 and 3/8ths inches. - 5106 is 5 feet ten and 6/8ths inches. Likewise, when you see 5090 it equals five feet 9 inches exactly. In an NFL scouting computer system, you will see every height listed in the 4 digit codes.
Same when reading “arm length”, hand size or wing span- 3378 for a players arm length- is 33 and 7/8th inches or 2928 is 29 and 2/8ths inches. Everything is down to 8ths. Hand size 0978 spelled out is 9 and 7/8ths- this is the measurement from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger in a hand that’s spread as far as it can be. Wing span is measured across the back of an athlete whose arms are extend out to his sides usually from tip of middle finger to tip of middle finger.