Over (the main five) drills (460 total drill opportunities for this crop), there was a 37 percent participation rate (168 opportunities actually taken), based on NFL.com’s results page.
Last year, 102 front seven players participated at a 44 percent rate over the same five drills. So 2026 is just another year of continued drop-off for the combine, an 18 percent drop in participation relative to the 2025 rate. From a raw numbers perspective, the front seven defenders did 58 more drills last year than this class did. The drills per player rate dropped from 2.2 in 2025 to just 1.8 in 2026.
The last “pre-Covid” combine was actually in 2020, as the NFL was able to thread the needle before travel restrictions started to hit. That year, there was a 63 percent drill participation rate among front seven defenders.