{"id":780214,"date":"2026-02-27T16:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/780214\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:18:19","slug":"chiefs-draft-is-rueben-bain-jr-too-risky-for-a-top-10-selection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/780214\/","title":{"rendered":"Chiefs Draft: Is Rueben Bain Jr. too risky for a top-10 selection?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Draft good football players. That\u2019s supposed to be the goal. Everything else is secondary.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean the other details are completely irrelevant.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the week of the NFL Scouting Combine, otherwise known as silly season for the NFL. Rumors fly. Speculation is rampant. Years of tape go disregarded in favor of measurables. It all feels a bit reckless. But there\u2019s a method to the madness.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always believed the Combine is more about avoiding landmines than it is pinpointing the next NFL superstar. Thresholds exist for a reason, and they\u2019re all about historical precedent. What has worked in the past, and what are the odds of it continuing to work in the future? It\u2019s risk management, really. We do it in every aspect of life. You must be 16 years old to drive a car, 18 years old to smoke and 21 years old to drink.<\/p>\n

And you must have 33-inch arms to play offensive tackle in the NFL. This is the way our world works, for better or for worse.<\/p>\n

This brings us to the curious case of Rueben Bain Jr. You\u2019re probably familiar with his work. He was a consensus All-American this past season for Miami, and he was arguably the most dominant player in this year\u2019s College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n

His performance on the field is almost certainly worthy of a top-10 selection \u2014 except for one slight issue.<\/p>\n

Bain measured 6 feet 2 inches tall and 263 pounds at the Combine. That\u2019s short for a traditional edge rusher deployed by defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, but it\u2019s passable. His arm length, though? That might be a \u2018too short to ride this ride\u2019 kind of number.<\/p>\n

Bain\u2019s 30 \u215e-inch arms would be, according to ESPN research<\/a>, the shortest for an edge rusher drafted in the first round in the last 20 drafts. That might sound trivial, but it\u2019s the kind of measurement teams use to filter out historical outliers, even those who performed as well as Bain this past season.<\/p>\n

The transition from college football to the NFL is significant. Opposing players are bigger, faster and stronger. The three best offensive tackles a defensive end lines up against in college might never start an NFL game. This is why measurables are so important; they help to indicate whether college success will be able to translate to the next level.<\/p>\n

\"FOXBOROUGH,<\/a><\/p>\n

FOXBOROUGH, MA – JANUARY 18: Will Campbell #66 of the New England Patriots blocks against the Houston Texans during an NFL divisional playoff game at Gillette Stadium on January 18, 2026 in Foxborough, Massachusetts.(Photo By Winslow Townson\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

An example of this on the other side of the ball is New England Patriots<\/a> offensive tackle Will Campbell. He was subject last offseason to the same arm-length questions teams have right now about Bain. Campbell\u2019s 32 \u215d-inch arms did not meet the league\u2019s threshold for offensive tackles. The Patriots trusted Campbell\u2019s college film and believed he would translate well to the NFL despite his physical limitations.<\/p>\n

For most of the regular season, it appeared the bet would pay off. The NFL humbles you fast, though, and Campbell felt that in the postseason when he allowed 19 pressures over the course of four playoff games, according to Pro Football Focus. His arm length suddenly became a liability, and discussion of a potential move to the interior feels inevitable.<\/p>\n

This is one anecdote of how thresholds work and why the league utilizes them. Campbell could be viewed by some as a cautionary tale for why organizations should be careful overlooking Bain\u2019s lack of length. It\u2019s concerning how little precedent there is for such a player finding success as a professional.<\/p>\n

Noteworthy defensive ends drafted within the past 25 years with sub-32.5 inch arms:<\/p>\n

Markus Golden (6\u20192, 260, 31 \u215b\u201d arms)Carl Lawson (6\u20192, 260, 31.5\u201d arms)Melvin Ingram (6\u20191, 264, 31.5\u201d arms)Micah Parsons (6\u20193, 246, 31.5\u201d arms)Kyle Van Noy (6\u20193, 243, 31 \u215d\u201d arms)Trey Hendrickson (6\u20194, 266, 32\u201d arms)Derek Barnett (6\u20193, 259, 32 \u215b\u201d arms)Aidan Hutchinson (6\u20196 \u215d\u201d, 260, 32 \u215b\u201d arms)Clay Matthews (6\u20193, 240, 32 \u00bc\u201d arms)Brandon Graham (6\u20192, 268, 32 \u00bc\u201d arms)Shaq Barrett (6\u20191, 250, 32 \u00bc\u201d arms)<\/p>\n

That list includes several different body types and scheme fits. Roughly half of the list could better be classified as an old-school 3-4 outside linebacker, the kind of player that really wouldn\u2019t fit in Spagnuolo\u2019s defense. Breaking it down further and focusing exclusively on traditional base 4-3 defensive ends, how many actually produced in the way that would be necessary for a top 10 pick to be deemed a success?<\/p>\n

Would Melvin Ingram\u2019s career be considered a success for Bain if he\u2019s drafted ninth overall? What about Markus Golden\u2019s? Brandon Graham was a good player for a long time, but he had exactly one season with double-digit sacks. Was Carl Lawson good enough to justify a top 10 pick?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re betting on a player to be a historical outlier, you better be right. Especially when you\u2019re drafting that player in the top 10 for a franchise with very few opportunities to do so. This is too important a draft and too important a pick for the Chiefs to whiff. The opportunity cost is simply too great.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a point at which Bain would be an obvious pick for the Chiefs. The arm length limitations make that case much more difficult to make with the ninth overall pick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Draft good football players. That\u2019s supposed to be the goal. Everything else is secondary. That doesn\u2019t mean the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2063],"tags":[346,7,118,110,923,1193,2438,2437,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-780214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-chiefs","8":"tag-chiefs","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-kansas-city","11":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","12":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs-draft","13":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs-roster","14":"tag-kansascity","15":"tag-kansascitychiefs","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116143502724556742","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}